Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Activity © 2016 Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, oregonaitc.org1

AITC Literacy Project 2016DescriptionBefore We Eat is a story about the several steps our food goes through before it ends up in our homes and schools. The story teaches students that food doesn’t magically appear in the supermarket and focuses on the wide range of people that work in agriculture. Together with the lesson, this project will inspire conversations with students about the potential of working in agriculture.

Part 1: Introduction and Reading 20 minutes

1. Briefly introduce yourself and your connection to agriculture. (2-3 minutes) Bring props, samples or photos of your farm. This is a very important part of these presenta-tions! Take your time and talk about how you contribute to agriculture. 2. Introduce the Six F’s of Agriculture. (2 minutes) 3. Example: Say, “Agriculture is a big word and it is an important part of our daily lives. I am going to teach you “The Six F’s of Oregon Agriculture” to help you understand how important agriculture is. Now repeat after me.” Hold up the bag for each word as you go through the Six F’s. Say, “The first F is for Farming. The second F is for Food. Agriculture feeds us. The third F is Fiber. Fiber is used to make fabric and clothes. The fourth F is Fishing. In Oregon we harvest lots of food from the ocean. The fifth F is Flowers. One of Oregon’s biggest agricultural industries is nursery and greenhouse crops like flowers. And, the last F is Forestry. Wood products are used to make buildings, furniture, paper products and more. As you can see, agriculture is everywhere and very important to all of us it feeds us, keeps us warm and provides us shelter.” Place the bags in a visible location so that students can be reminded throughout the lesson. 4. Introduce the story. (1 minute) Example: Say, “I am going to read a story that talks about how our food gets from the farmer to our table. Pay careful attention to the differ-ent jobs that people have as we read the book and also look out for the ‘6 F’s of Agricul-ture’ throughout the book.”5. Reading. (15 minutes) This book is a very quick read, take time to show students the pictures in this book as you go and READ SLOWLY! Also, you can point out, with the students the “6 F’s of Agriculture” as you go. While not all of them are explicitly stated, when you are done reading you can review “fiber, flowers and forestry” while these in-dustries are not food products they still are very important in agriculture for our homes, clothes and a variety of other products!

Part 2: “Agricultural Networking” Lesson 20-25 minutes

2A. Transition into the ActivityAfter you have read the book, lead the students in a few follow-up questions. For example: Who should we thank? What are some of the different workers that the book mentioned? For younger grades, consider opening the last page of the book to help the students remember. After a few minutes of discussion, explain to students that there are a lot of important people in many different jobs who bring food and resources to our school and homes. In this activity we are going to explore some of the different careers, or jobs, in agriculture.

Overview:Time: 45 minutes Grade Level: K-4 Common Core State Standards:K.RL.1,2,7; K.RI.1,3,5; K.SL.1.2.61.RL.1; 1.SL.12.RL.3; 2.RI.2; 2.SL.13.RL.3,6; 3.RI.2; 3.SL.4,64.RL.2; 4.RI.7; 4.SL.1,3PE.03.SM.01Materials: Book; 6 F’s of Agriculture bags; 1 Deck of Career Cards

Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation

Checklist:

• Contact the teacher before your presentation.

• If you plan to use a white/smart board, check with the teacher before hand.

• Practice reading the book out loud and doing the activity beforehand.

• Complete participation form and return it to AITC.

Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Activity © 2016 Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, oregonaitc.org2

2B. Performing the Activity 1. Explain to the students how the lesson will work. You will distribute a career card to each student and they will work to find which of the 6 F’s of Agriculture that career fits best with. 2. Provide an example. Take one of the cards out of the deck and read it aloud. Have the student help you with which category it fits best. What clues helped you figure it out?3. Once you have finished the example, ask if there are any questions before you begin. Pass out one “career card” per student. 4. Let the students move around the classroom, finding the best category for their career. Briefly answer any questions, you may need to help younger students read their cards. 5. After all of the cards have been sorted and students have returned to their seats. Begin with one category working through the cards, discussing briefly the different jobs in that field. Make sure that they are sorted, remember that several can be place in multiple areas, but some should definetly go into a specific category. Highlight how the careers are relat-ed. Don’t spend too long talking about the individual careers as students will lose interest. Make the jobs sound exciting, and include skills that might be needed such as math or writing. 6. After you have reviewed the sorted cards, collect the cards and after shuffling distribute one per student again. This time tell students that they need to find 1 other classmate (For Grades K-2) or 3 other classmates (For Grades 3-4) that they would likely do business with if they had this job. For example, a vegetable farmer is going to need a seed salesman to get his seeds each year or a dairy farmer will need a milk truck driver to get his product to the processing facility. Give students a few minutes to find someone that they might work with, they can form larger groups if necessary. When complete, have the students be seated where they are and briefly ask each group how they would work together. This activity emphasizes that there are many jobs that can’t be done without another job, it takes everyone working together to bring food to our table! If students are having a difficult time doing this task, or you feel that the students are not at this level of understanding yet, simply redo the original activity of sorting careers into the 6 F’s of Agriculture, giving the students a different card.

*Try to keep completed clusters together. There are 44 cards and 11 clusters of 4. If you know how many students you will have before head of time, remove extra cards to ensure that every card has at least one other in their cluster distributed. Use the included guide for assistance.*

Part 3: Wrap Up 5 minutes 1. When the activity is complete gather the cards and ask the students to return to their seats (or the carpet) and talk about the activity and what they learned. Here are some ques-tions to lead the discussion: a. What did you learn from the activity? b. There were a lot of different jobs that were on the cards. Were any of those jobs some- thing that you have never heard of? c. What job do you want when you finish school? d. Do you know someone who works in agriculture?2. When the discussion draws to a close (or when time runs out), it is time to distribute the bookmarks to the students. Tell the students that this bookmark will help them remem-ber to be thankful for all of the important people that help bring our food. 3. Review The Six F’s of Agriculture if you have time. 4. Thank the teacher and students for sharing their time to learn about agriculture. 5. Leave the book and the contents of the “Teacher Packet” for the classroom’s library and collect all other supplies to reuse in another classroom. Once completed, you can return the cards to AITC to reuse with other volunteers.

Don’t forget to fill out the participation form, either online or mail the one included in your packet!

Thank you!