Grade: Multi Grade

28 Jan 2025

Pasture to Product

August – June

You are what you eat! Our farmers care for our animals so that we can produce the highest quality of food. Young learners who visit the farm will deepen their knowledge of where their food comes from while middle and high school students will uncover the science required to produce the food in our farm market. Come explore how our farming practices can turn green pastures into great products, like meat and eggs!

Ohio Science Standards:

  • K.LS.1: Living things have specific characteristics and traits.
  • 1.LS.1 Living things have basic needs, which are met by obtaining materials from the physical environment.
  • 2.LS.1: Living things cause changes on Earth.
  • 3.LS.3: Plants and animals have life cycles that are part of their adaptations for survival in their natural environments.
  • 4.LS.1: Changes in an organism’s environment are sometimes beneficial to its survival and sometimes harmful.
  • 5.LS.2: All of the processes that take place within organisms require energy.
  • 6.LS.4 Living systems at all levels of organization demonstrate the complementary nature of structure and function. 
  • 7.LS.1 Energy flows and matter is transferred continuously from one organism to another and between organisms and their physical environments.
  • 8.LS.3 The characteristics of an organism are a result of inherited traits received from parent(s).
  • ENV.ER.4: Soil and land
  • ENV.GP.4: Sustainability
  • ENV.GP.7: Food production and availability

Indiana and NGSS:

  • K-ESS3-1 Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.
  • 2-LS4-1 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.
  • 3-LS4-3 Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
  • 4-LS1-1 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
  • 5-ESS3-1. Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
  • 3-5-ETS1-1 Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
  • MS-LS1-6 Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.
  • MS-LS4-5 Gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
  • HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity
  • HS-LS2-1 Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales.
  • HS-LS2-7. Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

Ohio Social Studies Standards:

  • K: Economics – Production and Consumption: Goods are objects that can satisfy an individual’s wants. Services are actions that can satisfy an individual’s wants.
  • 1: Economics – Production and Consumption Goods:  People produce and consume goods and services in the community. 
  • 2: Economics – Production and Consumption Goods: Most people around the world work in jobs in which they produce specific goods and services.
  • 3: Geography – Places and Region: Daily life is influenced by the agriculture, industry and natural resources in different communities.
  • 4: Economics – Economic Decision Making and Skills:  Tables and charts organize data in a variety of formats to help individuals understand information and issues.
  • 5: Economics – Scarcity: The availability of productive resources (i.e., entrepreneurship, human resources, capital goods and natural resources) promotes specialization that could lead to trade
  • 6: Economics – Scarcity: The fundamental questions of economics include what to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce.
  • High School: Economics and Financial Literacy: Economists analyze multiple sources of data to predict trends, make inferences and arrive at conclusions 
  • High School: Fundamentals of Economics: Markets exist when consumers and producers interact. When supply or demand changes, market prices adjust. Those adjustments send signals and provide incentives to consumers and producers to change their own decisions. 
  • High School: Fundamentals of Economics: 6. Competition among sellers lowers costs and prices, and encourages producers to produce more of what consumers are willing and able to buy. Competition among buyers increases prices and allocates goods and services to those people who are willing and able to pay the most for them.

Vocabulary:

 Pasture, Product, Livestock, Farm Market, Mobile Chicken Coop, Herd, Flock, Egg (Yolk, White, Shell), Dissection, Ruminant, Bee Hive, Quality, Quantity, Management, Cost, Study

15 Jan 2025

Nature Escape Room

August 2025-June 2026

Students will work together as a team to sharpen their observation skills and solve escape room style puzzles all while engaging in hands-on nature exploration. In this outdoor simulation, we need the help of your students to protect the biodiversity of our land and save Greenacres from the dreaded Deforester!  (at Spooky Hollow Farm site only)

Ohio Science Standards:

  • SIPA Grade 6-8: Apply knowledge of science content to real-world challenges.
  • SWK Grade 6-8: Science is a continual process and the body of scientific knowledge continues to grow and change.

NGSS Standards:

  • MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment
  • MS-PS1-2. Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.

Vocabulary: Biodiversity, awareness, observation, neutralize

13 Dec 2023

Step into Soil

All life depends on soil. Come learn how this important building block impacts life around Greenacres, and how we create healthier soil through farming practices. We will also experience how soil scientists study the properties of soil.

Ohio Science Standards:

  • 4.ESS.3: The surface of Earth changes due to erosion and deposition.
  • 4.PS.1: When objects break into smaller pieces, dissolve, or change state, the total amount of matter is conserved.
  • 6.ESS.5 Rocks, mineral and soils have common and practical uses.
  • 6.ESS.4 Soil is unconsolidated material that contains nutrient matter and weathered rock.

Indiana and NGSS Standards:

  • 2-ESS2-1. Compare multiple solutions designed to slow or prevent wind or water from changing the shape of the land.
  • 4-ESS2-1. Make observations and/or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation.
  • 4-ESS2-2. Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features
  • MS-LS2-5. Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • MS-ESS2-1. Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth’s materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
  • HS-ESS2-2. Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

Ohio Social Studies Standards (K-8):

  • Geography – Spatial Thinking and Skills: Spatial thinking examines the relationships among people, places and environments by mapping and graphing geographic data. Geographic data are compiled, organized, stored and made visible using traditional and geospatial technologies. Students need to be able to access, read, interpret and create maps and other geographic representations as tools of analysis.
  • Geography – Places and Regions: A place is a location having distinctive characteristics, which give it meaning and character and distinguish it from other locations. A region is an area with one or more common characteristics, which give it a measure of homogeneity and make it different from surrounding areas. Regions and places are human constructs.

      Vocabulary:

      soil health, properties, erosion, deposition, matter, minerals, nutrient, weathering

      13 Dec 2023

      Inquiry on the Farm (Grades 4+)

      December – February

       Scientific inquiry is a way of doing science that includes making observations, forming hypotheses, designing studies, collecting data, and drawing conclusions. While spending time in the greenhouse and other growing spaces, even in winter, students will design and conduct a simple investigation to learn about farming through the inquiry process.

      Ohio Science Standards:

      • SIPA Grade 3-5: Observe and ask questions about the world that can be answered through scientific investigations.
      • SWK Grade 3-5: Science is a way of knowing about the world around us based on evidence from experimentation and observations. 
      • SWK Grade 6-8: Science is a way of knowing about the world around us based on evidence from experimentation and observations.
      • SWK Grade 6-8: Science is a continual process and the body of scientific knowledge continues to grow and change.

      Indiana and NGSS Standards:

      • 3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. 
      • 4-PS3-2.Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
      • 5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
      • 5-PS3-1:Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
      • 5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
      • MS – LS2-1. Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
      • MS-PS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design, construct, and test a device that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy transfer.  

      Social Studies Standards (K-8):

      • Geography – Spatial Thinking and Skills: Spatial thinking examines the relationships among people, places and environments by mapping and graphing geographic data. Geographic data are compiled, organized, stored and made visible using traditional and geospatial technologies. Students need to be able to access, read, interpret and create maps and other geographic representations as tools of analysis.
      • Government – Civic Participation and Skills: Civic participation embraces the ideal that an individual actively engages in his or her community, state or nation for the common good. Students need to practice effective communication skills including negotiation, compromise and collaboration. Skills in accessing and analyzing information are essential for citizens in a democracy.
      • Economics – Economic Decision Making and Skills: Effective economic decision making requires students to be able to reason logically about key economic issues that affect their lives as consumers, producers, savers, investors and citizens. Economic decision-making and skills engage students in the practice of analyzing costs and benefits, collecting and organizing economic evidence and proposing alternatives to economic problems.

      Vocabulary: Observation, Investigation, Comparative Question, Data, Analysis

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