Nebraska Educator Guides
Engage students with educator guides for active learning. These activities allow students to learn through many of their senses, while aligning with Nebraska State Education Standards.
Kindergarten – 2nd Grade
Battle of the Birds: Broilers vs. Layers
Grade: 2nd
Content Connection: Science, Social Studies
Activity Summary: Students will learn that broiler and layer chickens have different purposes but share the same basic needs. Using photos, discussion, and a matching-and-sorting game, students will explore how Nebraska farmers give chickens food, water, air, shelter, and space to keep them healthy. The lesson ends with a drawing or labeling activity to show what students learned about a chicken’s needs.
Cool Cattle
Grade: Kindergarten
Content Connection: Science
Light Waves: Develop a model to describe that waves are reflected and use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves.
Phenomenon: Cows are gathered together under the square structure on a June afternoon in a rural Nebraska feedlot.
Farming in a Glove
Grade: 2nd
Content Connection: Science
Activity Summary: This activity has each group create a small “farm” where they can see different seeds germinate. The “farm” is a clear plastic glove with a cotton ball in each of the fingers. A seed is placed on the moist cotton ball. To conduct the investigation, each group will hang one “farm” in the window and their second glove in a dark room or drawer. The students will monitor the gloves and record observations in a science journal.
The Great Pumpkin
Grade: Kindergarten
Content Connection: Science
Activity Summary: A life cycle is the series of stages an organism passes through during its lifetime. Specifically, this activity has each student create a model of the pumpkin life cycle.
Many Hats in Agriculture
Grade: 2nd
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: Discover that agricultural careers are interconnected, and that agriculture influences many parts of their daily lives. Participate in a sequencing activity to understand that many jobs help move goods from producer to consumer. Students will create a paper “pinwheel” illustration of the many hats of agriculture to visualize future career opportunities.
My Farm Web
Grade: 2nd
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: This activity provides an excellent representation of a web to explore the role of agriculture in students daily lives using a graphic organizer as a teaching strategy to explore the definition of agriculture.
Journey of a Soybean
Grade: 2nd
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: Students will understand how food gets from the grocery store to their home by participating in a sequencing activity to understand how soybeans are moved from producer to consumer. The sequencing activity will use a set of cards and allow students to predict the supply chain process and the rearrange their cards after watching a video from CGB Grain.
3rd Grade – 5th Grade
Using problem-based learning, this set of lessons allows students to work in teams, think critically and analyze, and centers on student learning to answer the question, “how does a farmer help a pig grow from two pounds to two-hundred seventy pounds in six months?” Present the problem first and take a short time or a whole semester to answer the question. You can even take a Virtual Field Trip to a Nebraska Pig Farm!
Agriculture is Everywhere
Grade: 4th
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: In this activity, students will work as a team to create a list of products from agriculture. Once the list-making game is complete, students will research one of their examples to share the human, capital, and entrepreneurial resources to make the goods.
Chewing the Cud
Grade: 5th
Content Connection: Science
Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, and motion and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
Phenomenon: Cattle are one of the few animals that can survive by eating grass.
Farm to Fuel
Grade: 4th
Content Connection: Science
Corn is an a-maize-ing crop! Popcorn, sweet corn, and candy corn are some tasty treats, but did you know that corn can also fuel vehicles? In this lesson, students will engage in an interactive matching game to discover how corn travels from the farm to local gas stations!
From Sun, to Moo, to You
Grade: 5th
Content Connection: Science
Students will discover how ruminant animals in Nebraska convert grass into nutrient-rich foods such as milk and meat. Students will create their own feed ration that identifies the necessary nutrients in a ruminant animal’s diet. Students will create a model that makes a connection between meat and milk products to the energy that once came from the sun.
How Now Brown Cow
Grade: 5th
Content Connection: Science
Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
Phenomenon: Some cattle live in feedlots and some live in pastures.
Nebraska Interactive Map Lessons
Grade: 4th
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: Explore sixteen lessons addressing a range of social studies standards with connections to the text, The Nebraska Adventure second edition.
Our World: Soil & Water
Grade: 5th
Content Connection: Science
This hands-on activity will model the limited amount of fresh water on earth and identify how best management practices can reduce water consumption and help students understand that topsoil is a limited resource by slicing up Play-Doh to demonstrate the distribution of Earth’s soil resources
Transportation Across Nebraska
Grade: 3rd
Content Connection: Social Studies
Activity Summary: This activity puts students in the shoes of a career to be “working” for a transportation company. Students will access maps via a computer or tablet and complete a worksheet with questions about how Nebraska agricultural products are in all parts of the state and need to be transported to a variety of locations.
Wad-a-Watershed
Grade: 3rd
Content Connection: Science
Activity Summary: This activity provides an excellent visual representation of a watershed and how the actions of everyone can impact water resources. Students will create a small watershed by wadding up a piece of paper, highlighting watershed areas, and spraying water to show how water moves across an area.
6th Grade – 8th Grade
Cool Cow
Grade: 8th
Content Connection: Science
Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface.
Phenomenon: Cattle in a pasture stand under a tree on a hot, sunny day.
Sustainable Beef
Grade: 7th
Content Connection: Science
Earth and Human Activity: Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and increasing positive human impact on the environment.
Phenomenon: Feedlots can support 50 steers on one acre, but pasture can only support one steer per acre.
High School
Using problem-based learning, this set of lessons allows students to work in teams, think critically and analyze, and centers on student learning to answer the question, “how does a farmer help a pig grow from two pounds to two-hundred seventy pounds in six months?” Present the problem first and take a short time or a whole semester to answer the question. You can even take a Virtual Field Trip to a Nebraska Pig Farm!
Native Grasses
Grade: High School
Content Connection: Science
Biology: Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors and apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.
Phenomenon: There are more native grasses in fields using rotational grazing practices that in fields with traditional grazing.
