An Example of Science and Social Studies Standards Taught at Middleton Farms are listed below
While at Middleton Farms students will:
- Investigate the
resulting motion of objects when forces of different strengths and directions
act upon them (e.g., object being pushed, object being pulled, two objects
colliding.) See saws and swings
- Use
observations and data from investigations to determine if a design solution
(e.g., designing a ramp to increase the speed of an object in order to move a
stationary object) solves the problem of using force to change the speed or
direction of an object.* Hand
pump water/duck races
- Distinguish between living and nonliving things
and verify what living things need to survive (e.g., animals needing food,
water, and air; plants needing nutrients, water, sunlight, and air). Garden, greenhouse, calf
feeding, milking demonstration, provided
- Gather evidence to support how plants and
animals provide for their needs by altering their environment (e.g., tree roots
breaking a sidewalk to provide space, red fox burrowing to create a den to
raise young, humans growing gardens for food and building roads for transportation). Garden, greenhouse, calf
feeding
- Identify and plan
possible solutions (e.g., reducing, reusing, recycling) to lessen the human
impact on the local environment.* Garden, greenhouse
- Observe and describe the effects of sunlight on Earth's surface (e.g., heat from the sun causing evaporation of water or increased temperature of soil, rocks, sand, and water). Garden, greenhouse
- Observe, record, and share findings of local weather patterns over a period of time (e.g., increase in daily temperature from morning to afternoon, typical rain and storm patterns from season to season). Garden, greenhouse
Social Studies Objectives:
2.) Compare families of today with families of the past in relation to work, home, and school.
Examples:
- present-one or both parents working outside the home, families sharing household responsibilities, students having choices of transportation;
- -past-parents working together on family-owned farms, family responsibilities assigned by gender, students walking to school
4.) Identify personal use of goods and services.
- Demonstrating ways money is used in everyday life. Middleton Farm's General Store Examples: saving money in piggy banks, using money to buy pencils at the school supply store
- Identifying various community helpers and their roles in the community. Middleton Farm-farmers, field trip workers
Examples: farmers providing food, firefighters putting out fires, health care professionals giving vaccinations, police officers protecting citizens
Grade 1
- Conduct experiments to
provide evidence that vibrations of matter can create sound (e.g., striking a
tuning fork, plucking a guitar string) and sound can make matter vibrate (e.g.,
holding a piece of paper near a sound system speaker, touching your throat
while speaking). Playground-music wall
- Investigate materials to
determine which types allow light to pass through (e.g., transparent materials
such as clear plastic wrap), allow only partial light to pass through (e.g.,
translucent materials such as wax paper), block light (e.g., opaque materials
such as construction paper), or reflect light (e.g., shiny materials such as
aluminum foil). Greenhouse
- Design and construct a device that uses light or sound to send a communication signal over a distance (e.g., using a flashlight and a piece of cardboard to simulate a signal lamp for sending a coded message to a classmate, using a paper cup and string to simulate a telephone for talking to a classmate). Playground-music wall, greenhouse
- Design a solution to a human problem by using materials to imitate how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs (e.g., outerwear imitating animal furs for insulation, gear mimicking tree bark or shells for protection). Life cycle, Greenhouse
- Obtain information to
provide evidence that parents and their offspring engage in patterns of
behavior that help the offspring survive (e.g., crying of offspring indicating
need for feeding, quacking or barking by parents indicating protection of young).
Life cycle, Milking Demonstration
- Make observations to
identify the similarities and differences of offspring to their parents and to
other members of the same species (e.g., flowers from the same kind of plant
being the same shape, but differing in size; dog being same breed as parent,
but differing in fur color or pattern). Life cycle, Milking Demonstration
Social Studies:
1.) Identify past and present modes of air, land, and water transportation. (How farming has changed over time discussion, milk stations)
• Identifying past and present types of technology (Station: farming in the past or present-horse and plow, today-GPS guided equipment/tractors)
4.) Describe the role of money in everyday life.
Examples: using money to purchase goods such as groceries (farmers purchase feed, fertilizer, seed, consumer purchases finished products: milk, butter, ice cream, cheese), using money to pay for services such as babysitting
• Explaining differences between wants and needs Middleton Farm's General Store
• Explaining differences between buyers and sellers. Farmers buy seed, feed, tractors and then farmers sell milk, cotton, pumpkins
Grade 2
1 Conduct an investigation to describe
and classify various substances according to physical properties (e.g., milk
being a liquid, not clear in color, assuming shape of its container, mixing
with water; mineral oil being a liquid, clear in color, taking shape of its
container, floating in water; a brick being a solid, not clear in color, rough
in texture, not taking the shape of its container, sinking in water). Milking
Demonstration-observe milk through hose into container
4 Provide evidence that some changes in matter caused by
heating or cooling can be reversed (e.g., heating or freezing of water) and
some changes are irreversible (e.g., baking a cake, boiling an egg). Butter Making station discuss process & change
5 Plan and carry out an investigation, using one variable
at a time (e.g., water, light, soil, air), to determine the growth needs of
plants. Greenhouse, garden
6 Design and construct models to simulate how animals
disperse seeds or pollinate plants (e.g., animals brushing fur against seed
pods and seeds falling off in other areas, birds and bees extracting nectar
from flowers and transferring pollen from one plant to another). Greenhouse, garden, bee hives
11 Examine and test solutions that address changes caused
by Earth's events (e.g., dams for minimizing flooding, plants for controlling
erosion). Farm property
Social Studies
1.) Compare features of modern-day living to those of the past. (Station: farming past/present)
Examples: past-shopping in general stores, attending frontier schools in one-room buildings;
- present-shopping in national chain superstores, attending contemporary schools with multiple classrooms
• Using vocabulary to describe segments of time
Examples: year, decade, century
5.) Explain the relationship between the production and distribution processes. (Live Milking Demonstration and presentation)
Examples: tracing milk supply from production on the farm to grocery stores and to consumers, tracing the manufacturing of technological components in other countries to consumers in the United States
• Discussing the impact of consumer choices and decisions
Example: cost of buying and caring for a pet
• Making informed decisions about borrowing and saving
