Planting Seeds for Future Farmers
Nathan Sharon, Environmental Education Specialist, teaches a classroom about wheat.
Snohomish Conservation District’s Youth Education Team has been hard at work delivering Wheat Week educational curriculum to students throughout Snohomish County and Camano Island. This series of five lessons is available free of charge to 4th and 5th grade classes and focuses on the relationships between resource conservation and agriculture in Washington state.
Wheat Week engages students in critical thinking and experiential learning. This STEM-based curriculum uses wheat as a focal point to teach students about a variety of natural resource topics. Taught once per day over the course of a week, students plant and grow their own wheat terrariums and learn about local agriculture production in the process.
Monday - What Is Wheat?
Students learn the names and functions of different plant parts, as well as what plants need to survive. To demonstrate their knowledge, students finish the lesson by creating their very own terrarium planted with wheat kernels. For the rest of the week, students will begin their lesson by observing their wheat plants and taking note of their growth.
Tuesday - Water in Our World
The class learns how water moves through the water cycle, discusses water conservation strategies, and flows around the classroom in a water cycle game. Some students begin to notice their wheat kernels have changed: they’ve changed color, begun to split open, and some have even breached the surface of the soil.
Wednesday - Amazing Soils
Our educators teach students how weathering and erosion shape the face of the Earth. The students get their hands dirty exploring soil texture, and they learn about how soil type and composition affect farming. In their terrariums, a few tiny, pale roots have begun to creep from their kernels.
Thursday - Wheat DNA
Students learn that living things use DNA to help their growth and development. They extract wheat DNA in a test tube, filling the classroom with a chorus of “ooohs” and “eeews.” As their DNA experiments develop, the class discusses seed breeding and the long history of agricultural genetics. By now, most of the students see tiny green stems peaking above the soil within their terrariums.
Friday - Wheat Energy
Students reading to wheat plants.
Students wrap up the week with their final terrarium observations. These little plants grow fast. Just five days after planting, these kernels sport stems several millimeters tall and have sprawling roots and root hairs deep in the soil. This lesson focuses on how energy is transferred from the sun, to plants, and finally to our bodies when we eat plant products. Each student gets to thresh a stalk of wheat, crunch on the fresh kernels, and take some kernels home to plant for themselves. To wrap up the week, the class writes postcards to Washington Wheat Farmers, thanking them for their hard work and sharing all the fun they had during Wheat Week.
In 2024, over 3,800 students and teachers across 41 elementary schools in Snohomish County and Camano Island received these Wheat Week lessons. Our educators had a fantastic time joining them and look forward to returning in 2025. If you’re interested in scheduling Wheat Week at your school, visit us at snohomishcd.org/elementary-lessons.
Wheat Week is funded by the Washington Grain Commission and in part by the Dairy Farmers of Washington. We appreciate Franklin Conservation District helping to bring the program to the state!