Hi there!
Just wondering if anyone out there has some fun, exciting and engaging lessons/activities for 8th graders.
Thanks!
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Thank you for sharing that shop project. I would love to have the plans, I would like to use it in one of my upper level classes. I am always stuggling for good projects that the students can use in the end!!
Here are the plans for the end tables, I do apologize for the low quality. I have a template made up, So I had to compile them from scratch on the computer. Anyways here you go...
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Have you seen the CAERT Junior High Curriculum? I've had pretty good luck with that over the last couple years. I have used the animal science and plant science most extensively. There are a couple activities included in the lessons and then I usually add some activities of my own from the AgTivities book that has been posted on CoP too. Here's an example of a review game that I use when we are wrapping up our sugar & oil crops chapter. You can customize it pretty easily to fit whatever you are studying. Hope that some of this works for you!
Thanks Sarah, this looks like promising material. - Sam Peterman
I have a number of activities:
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- Adaptation Game
- Agriscience/Intro to Ag Model
- Changes in Agriculture (.doc)
- Creation of a Niche
- Decomposition - Studying a Compost Pile
- Easter Egg Genetics
- Environmental Webquest - Water, Carbon, and Nitrogen Cycles
- Fall Foliage and the Changing Color of Leaves
- Farm Animals of the Spanish Colonial Texas
- Genetics and Animal Communities on Mars
- Grass Guy
- Grow a Garden in a Glove
- How Cars are Powered
- How Do Rabies Spread?
- Infected - A look at the immune system
- Judging Contest (.ppt)
- Knowing Nutrition
- Map Your Microwave
- Newton's Apple Video Clips
- Who Has Been Bitten By The Big Bad Spider
- Adaptation Game
Do you have an updated link to the "Environmental Webquest - water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles"? It no longer works.
When I was teaching middle school I did an agriculture show and tell every Friday. It was a way for them to find things that interested them and share it with the class. It also allowed my traditional ag kids to share their knowledge and life while my non-tradition could branch out. It seems silly and simple minded but they loved it and it and looked forward to it.
This is a great idea, I have been trying to come up with an idea like that and could never get it all to work out. Thanks for sharing!
A few things that I did was:
1.) Have them pick out one of there favorite things, then figure out how their topics relate to agriculture. They then wrote a speech around their topics and how they pertained to ag. I encouraged them to give their speeches to one another in class a few times as well. I also encouraged them to think outside of the box, and gave them examples of how some things "way out there" connected with agriculture. Some of them consisted of Horror films, Video games, Snow-mobiling, Clothes, and many many more.
2.) I had a large variety of seeds. I allowed them to each choose a differant type of seed to plant and they each planted a half of a flat, and we then placed them in the greenhouse, and they drew out of a hat which kids got to water which days. This worked well for me because I only had 10 of them, it could be a little trickier with more students. My advice on this one is to make sure you have a pre-plan on which plants they choose from and which ones will grow in certain environments. ( You may wonder, why does this matter if I have a greenhouse?) One reason this is important is mainly because germination times/ temperatures, and the time it takes each plant to mature varies and you will probably want them to all be on about the same schedule.
3.) My father has an end table that my grand father completed in shop class at about that age so I drew up plans based on that, I completed the more difficult cuts myself, and allowed them to cut the top and the shelf by hand. I had them screw them together, sand, and stain them all by hand they did use a cordless drill to drill holes to keep the wood from spliting, but this was the only power tool they were allowed to use. They were allowed to take them home once they completed them if they wanted to pay for the materials. The project averaged about 20 dollars per kid. I will attach a photo of one for you to look at and I will find the plans and try to get them on here ASAP.
Hope this helps.- Sam Peterman