Companion Resources

Levi Strauss and Blue Jeans tells the story of the man who made the first pair of blue jeans and changed the way the world dressed! In the mid-1880s, while adventurers rushed off to California to find gold, Levi Strauss followed with an idea of his own. In dramatic, graphic novel format, this book follows Strauss as he works to create a pair of pants sturdy enough for gold miners. Readers will learn how Levi found that not just gold miners, but hard-working people everywhere wanted the durable pants with the pocket rivets.

In the early 1880s, people did not understand why food spoiled. Louis Pasteur discovered that small germs cause spoilage. He began working on a process that would help food last longer. Inside this graphic novel, the reader learns about the experiments Pasteur conducted and the process of pasteurization.

New city. New school. Michael is feeling all alone—until he discovers the school garden! There's so many ways to learn, and so much to do. Taste a leaf? Mmm, nice and tangy hot. Dig for bugs? "Roly-poly!" he yells. But the garden is much more than activities outdoors: making school garden stone soup, writing Found Poems and solving garden riddles, getting involved in community projects such as Harvest Day, food bank donations, and spring plant sales. Each season creates a new way to learn, explore, and make new friends.

Peek inside this tree and see a wild colony of honey bees. It hums with life. Look at the thousands of worker bees--each one doing her job. Some are making wax. Some are feeding the hungry brood. Some are storing sweet honey. Look at all the combs, filled with honey and pollen! And there's the queen, laying eggs. It's all very organized, like a smoothly running town. A honey bee colony is a remarkable place. You will never look at bees in the same way again.

After sparrows ate too much grain, it was determined to banish them from China. However, an unintended consequence surfaced. The locust population grew to plague proportions and contributed to widespread famine. Based on a true story about the 1958 Sparrow War in China, this event highlights the important connections between managed and natural ecosystems.

How long does it take for science to find an answer to a problem? On January 25, 1862, naturalist Charles Darwin received a box of orchids. One flower, the Madagascar star orchid, fascinated him. It had an 11.5" nectary, the place where flowers make nectar, the sweet liquid that insects and birds eat. How, he wondered, did insects pollinate the orchid? It took 130 years to find the answer.

Maria's family are poor Honduran farmers, growing barely enough to eat. Then a new teacher comes to town and shows Maria sustainable farming practices that yield good crops. An inspiring story, based on actual events, that shows us how farms and hopes are transformed as good gardens begin to grow.

Do plants need light? Investigate the importance of light to plants by growing and comparing plants in light and dark desktop greenhouses. Kit includes clear plastic cups with lids, black plastic cups, black electrical tape, black card stock, Jiffy 7 peat pellets, alfalfa seeds, white 5mm LED lights, and 3-volt coin cell batteries for a classroom of students working in groups of two. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

If your students have advanced past “A is for Apple, B is for Barn, and C is for Cow,” you’ll want to give them this alphabet book about farms. Accurate agricultural terms are explained in rhymes and shown in pictures.

How did we get the familiar large yellow ear of corn today? Through the study of genetics, we know today that corn's wild ancestor is a grass called teosinte. Teosinte doesn't look much like maize, especially when you compare its kernals to those of corn. But at the DNA level, the two are surprisingly alike.

If we told you traditional agriculture was on the brink of a massive shift towards autonomy with machines doing the bulk of all the harvesting, would you believe it? Discover how robot farming machines are already doing the dirty work in more fields than people may realize.

Public attitudes about cultured "meat" vary widely. Use this article to introduce students to the possibility. Discuss the pros and cons and develop a name for this alternative meat.