Companion Resources

Take an interactive journey around the world to visit 16 farms. These are not your ordinary farms with cattle, sheep, hay, or grain. These farms produce specialty crops such as salmon, tulips, alligators, wind, mussels, coffee, leeches, lavender, yaks, seaweed, ostriches, rice, sunflowers, salt, ostriches, solar power, and alpacas. This journey would be an excellent supplement for elementary geography and agriculture lessons to teach students about less common types of farms.

The website for the USDA Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory at Utah State University provides a glimpse into the world of bee research. This is a great resource to build background knowledge prior to teaching about bees. In addition to many technical articles, the site provides links to popular magazine and USDA Agricultural Research Service news articles on bees. Dig deeper to find pages on how to identify bumble bees of northern Utah and a guide to raising bumble bees at home.

The DNA Learning Center (DNALC) is the world's first science center devoted entirely to genetics education and is an operating unit of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an important center for molecular genetics research. The DNALC website provides links to a family of educational Internet sites that cover broad topics, including basic heredity, genetic disorders, eugenics, the discovery of the structure of DNA, DNA sequencing, cancer, and plant genetics.

The Fight Bac website contains many helpful resources for teachers. You will find information about preventing foodborne illness, proper hand washing, kids games, activities, brochures, flyers, and video clips to enhance your lesson plans.

The Genetic Science Learning Center provides many teaching tools to supplement lessons on genetics, heredity, cells, cloning, and more. You will find virtual labs and simulations, graphics, and animations.

GMO Answers is an educational website to answer your questions about GMO's, or Genetically Modified Organisms. You will find infographics, images, videos, posters, and handouts to use as learning tools.

This website includes a series of interactive online modules with nearly five hours of programming on everything about corn, targeted to high school students.

The Kid's Gardening website is full of ideas for implementing a school garden. You will find instruction for container gardening, class activities, growing houseplants, etc.

"Discover Dairy" is an educational website for teachers and students. The website includes elementary level videos about the dairy farm, lesson plans for teachers, and activities.

AgExplorer is a comprehensive career resource to help you explore the broad range of careers within the industry of agriculture. Careers may have you using advanced equipment, creating new hybrid seeds, raising animals, managing people, or designing new products and packaging. The industry of agriculture can open up a world of possibilities, and the demand for professionals in every agricultural area is high. Learn more about which career might be right for you by watching the videos, exploring the career pages, and completing the Career Finder interactive.

The Crop Science Society of America promotes and encourages career opportunities in the agronomic, crop, soil and environmental sciences. The Career Placement webpage contains career profiles, salary survey reports, and career brochures for teachers and students who are interested in learning more about available jobs in these areas.