Resource Library
Discover free lesson plans and materials created by our program and partners.

Resource Library

California's Climate-Smart Farms Activities
How does climate change affect the foods we eat? How does our food affect climate change? And how can we develop healthy responses to meet the climate challenges our young people will face?
Grade: 
6 – 8
Eating, Learning, Growing: A Delicious Guide to Culturally Relevant Farm to School Education
This Eating Learning Growing guide provides a framework, activities, and reflections that help educators enhance farm to school lessons to make them more culturally relevant and celebrate fruits and vegetables.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Project Introduction
In this lesson, students are introduced to the central project for the unit: developing a planting proposal for the garden.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
1 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
The Garden as an Ecosystem
In this lesson, students begin to explore the garden as an ecosystem. They learn that the principle of interdependence defines any ecosystem, and they look for examples of this principle at play in the garden.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
2 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Cultivation and Tillage
In this lesson, students cultivate or till a garden bed and conduct an investigation on the impact cultivation and tillage on crop health. They start by reviewing the process of photosynthesis, and the requirements plants have for growth.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
3 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Soil Investigation
In this lesson, students deepen their understanding of the relationship between soil and crop health by conducting a hands-on soil investigation.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
4 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Crop Planning
In this lesson, students apply what they learned about the soil in their garden in the previous two lessons to identify crops that may grow well in their garden.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
5 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Companion Planting
In this lesson, students explore the agricultural method of companion planting, a method developed and still used by Indigenous farmers around the world. In this lesson, students will engage with a text about the “Three Sisters” method of planting beans, corn, and squash together.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
6 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Biotic Interactions
In this lesson, students complete a card sort activity that introduces them to the various biotic interactions, or interactions between organisms, that may occur in a garden ecosystem.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
7 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Weeding By Hand
In this lesson, students apply what they learned in the previous lesson about biotic interactions to explore the organic farming technique of weeding by hand. When farmers weed, they are removing plants they deem to be in competition with the crops they are intentionally cultivating.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
8 of 13
Standards:
Aligned
Mapping a Garden Food Web
In this lesson, students expand on what they learned in the previous lesson about biotic interactions to begin mapping a food web of the garden. This lesson forms the foundation for the next lessons in which students will consider how matter and energy flow through a garden ecosystem.
Grade: 
6 – 8
Progression:
9 of 13
Standards:
Aligned

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