Companion Resources

This excellent DVD explores a family rice farm in California's Sacramento Valley as viewed through the eyes of 11-year-old Sue Miller. A farmer's daughter, Sue is just beginning to understand the important role her family's farm plays in the surrounding ecology. Packed with plenty of educational information, this video also contains stirring visual images and a young person's perspective on something we all share; the basic human link to the soil and nature. Order this DVD online from agclassroomstore.com.

This four-minute video tells the story of Kevin, who's been fascinated with garbage since he was really little. He wanted to put an end to landfills and make it easier for people to recycle. How? Worms decompose organic waste! Learn how can worms help us with our garbage in this engaging video.

The perfect accompaniment to a classroom hatching project, this video helps students envision what is going on inside a fertilized, developing egg even though the egg doesn't appear to change from the outside. Detailed images of a chick's development along with a summary of milestones that the chick has achieved on or around each day provide an in-depth look at the 21-day hatching cycle.

This fast-paced 8-minute DVD will hold the attention of your students as they learn about corn planting and harvesting processes and find out that corn is used to make biodegradable plastics, sweetener, chewing gum, and more. As fewer children live on farms or have relatives who are farmers, it is important that they have the opportunity to learn about America's corn industry. Included with this DVD are two fact sheets on corn. Order this DVD online from agclassroomstore.com.

Use this TedEd video to support reasons why early civilizations moved from hunting-gathering to farming as a major innovation for the current world we live in today. All the essential advancements are depicted throughout this video stemming from agriculture to include the development of cities, division of labor, governing institutions, and advanced technologies - without agriculture none of these advancements would have occurred.

Supplement a plant anatomy lesson with this video which breaks down the anatomy and physiology of vascular plants. Learn the difference between herbaceous and woody plants and examples of each, the parts of the plant and the function it performs, and how water is absorbed through the roots and circulated through the plant through the xylem.

Use this 5-minute video to illustrate the complete process for developing a GMO through the scientific method and research. The Hawaiian papaya story is used as an example for resolving the papaya ring spot virus that had devastated the crop until a GMO variety was developed. Researchers and farmers turned to the development of GMOs as early as 1985 to improve the quality of plants to resist insects and disease while battling problems in production.

This 12-minute video clip describes and illustrates photosynthesis. It also addresses the Calvin Cycle and photorespiration.

Give students a peek into the lives of the Heaton's — a cattle ranching family from Alton, Utah. Follow them on their 30-mile journey from Rush Meadow to Dixie National Forest and learn more about the challenges these hardworking cowboys face.

View this 17-minute video to learn about the origins of corn. Discover how the domestication of corn impacted society and what plant domestic corn originates from. This video supports lessons on the domestication of plants and genetic evolution.

This link highlights the growth and production of the cotton plant. Begin with a short video clip about the growth of cotton including its history with slaves. Continue by learning about the modern use of genetic engineering in the cotton industry today. Following the video you can learn where cotton is grown across the world and what technology is used to plant, harvest, and process it into fabric.

In this YouTube video, Paul Anderson gives a detailed explanation in addition to visuals for explaining the purpose of chloroplasts during photosynthesis in plants. He explains how chloroplast will use the energy from the sun to form the chemical compound called glucose. The video also displays the structure of chloroplast, a description of light reaction, and the Calvin Cycle.