For specific lessons, please see our dairy links listed under the Field Trip tab. If you would like assistance with another grade level or subject, please contact us by "contacting us" on our website, through Facebook, or with our field trip coordinator at 251-709-2001.
An Example of Science and Social Studies Standards Taught at Middleton Farms
While at Middleton Farms students will:
2.) Investigate, measure, and communicate in a graphical format how an observed pattern of motion (e.g., a child swinging in a swing, a ball rolling back and forth in a bowl, two children teetering on a see-saw, a model vehicle rolling down a ramp of varying heights, a pendulum swinging) can be used to predict the future motion of an object. (See saws and swings provided)
5.) Obtain and combine information to describe that organisms are classified as living things, rather than nonliving things, based on their ability to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.
Life cycle of a cow, milking demonstration, cow anatomy station
6.) Create representations to explain the unique and diverse life cycles of organisms other than humans (e.g., flowering plants, frogs, butterflies), including commonalities such as birth, growth, reproduction, and death. Cow life cycle, corn, sunflower/squash/gourd life cycles, garden
7.) Examine data to provide evidence that plants and animals, excluding humans, have traits inherited from parents and that variations of these traits exist in groups of similar organisms (e.g., flower colors in pea plants, fur color and pattern in animal offspring).
Cow life cycle, bottle feeding baby calves
8.) Engage in argument from evidence to justify that traits can be influenced by the environment (e.g., stunted growth in normally tall plants due to insufficient water, change in an arctic fox's fur color due to light and/or temperature, stunted growth of a normally large animal due to malnourishment).
(Example from our fall season: Lots of rain in early summer, hot and dry late summer and early fall: Sunflowers and corn developed a fungus due to large amounts of rain. Gourds experienced increase in insects as a result of increased rain. Students will see the effects of a rainy summer followed by heat and dryness and the impact this has on plant growth and a decrease in production for cow feeds).
Grade 4
9.) Examine evidence to support an argument that the internal and external structures of plants (e.g., thorns, leaves, stems, roots, colored petals, xylem, phloem) and animals (e.g., heart, stomach, lung, brain, skin) function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
Lifecycle of a cow, milking demonstration, cow anatomy station
11.) Investigate different ways animals receive information through the senses, process that information, and respond to it in different ways (e.g., skunks lifting tails and spraying an odor when threatened, dogs moving ears when reacting to sound, snakes coiling or striking when sensing vibrations). Lifecycle of a cow, milking demonstration, cow anatomy station
Grade 5
8.) Defend the position that plants obtain materials needed for growth primarily from air and water. Garden, greenhouse
9.) Construct an illustration to explain how plants use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into a storable fuel, carbohydrates, and a waste product, oxygen, during the process of photosynthesis. Garden, greenhouse
10.) Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals' food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun.
Garden, greenhouse, Lifecycle of a cow, milking demonstration, cow anatomy station
11.) Create a model to illustrate the transfer of matter among producers; consumers, including scavengers and decomposers; and the environment. Garden, greenhouse
16.) Collect and organize scientific ideas that individuals and communities can use to protect Earth's natural resources and its environment (e.g., terracing land to prevent soil erosion, utilizing no-till farming to improve soil fertility, regulating emissions from factories and automobiles to reduce air pollution, recycling to reduce overuse of landfill areas). Garden, greenhouse, interview with Middleton farmers