Community Based Unit of Instruction

Community Based Unit of Instruction:   ***PALS*** (Partners in Active Learning Support)     Lessons:   1)      Exploding Cheeseburger   2)      From Farm to Table   3)      Animal Products & By-Products
For the Community Based Unit of Instruction I was able to excite my leadership class about teaching agriculture.  The students were able to develop skills to write lessons and skills to deliver through following some of the guidelines in the FFA PALS (Partners in Active Learning Support) program.  These students were charged with the task of becoming true leaders by showing exemplary skills of creating and designing instructional materials to share with middle school students.  Throughout this unit I was responsible for communicating with Shippensburg’s high school principal to receive permission and for connecting with the several principals of the elementary and middle schools to schedule an appropriate time for the lesson delivery.  To begin this unit first we spent some time discussing what it means to be involved in a Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE) program and how they could do an SAE on Agriculture Education.  Students were encouraged to utilize the online Agriculture Experience Tracking (AET) system to record their progress with this unit.  Once the leadership class was able to understand how to utilize AET we than began to dive deeper in creating lessons.  We spent class time digesting the components that make-up a lesson, how to plan, finding resources, and then ultimately developing and practicing the student’s lessons.  There are seven students enrolled in this class so there are two pairs and one trio that make up the groups for presenting the lessons.  The lesson titles that they choose were: 1) “Food Moves from Farm to Table,” 2) “Animal By-Products,” and 3) “Exploding Cheeseburger.”  As a class we would engage in circle group discussion to provide feedback for each lesson.  This was important for the students to learn that they should constantly be seeking to improve what they are doing.  Our discussion revolved around making sure that the content was not too dense for the audience, providing enough and appropriate activities, school policy on candy, and working on transitions between activities and content within the lessons.  The lesson “Food Moves from Farm to Table” the two ladies leading it are relying on the community game they led for the Shippensburg Corn Festival with matching food products to where it came from, they are using a coloring matching activity, and sharing a story.  For the lesson on “Animal By-Products” the two gentlemen are catching the student’s interest with giving them marshmallows and sharing with them after they eat it that there is bone in marshmallows. They will then transition to direct animal products such as bacon, hamburger, steak, eggs, etc.  Next they can actually dive deeper into defining what a by-product is and can rely on the marshmallow example.  The final group will present the lesson “Exploding Cheeseburger” and within this lesson they will color in the parts of a cheeseburger and discuss where each part comes from.  They will also be able to create a story board that explicitly demonstrates where everything originates from.  Due to standardized testing the visit for the lesson presentation was unable to be scheduled until May, therefore my cooperating teacher will ensure that the students are able to deliver the lesson at the middle school.  All of the other components for this unit were complete and I feel confident that the students in the leadership class will deliver the lessons in a professional manner and help teach the importance of agriculture.  The students will also be promoting the FFA by sporting their official dress and putting a “plug” into the middle school students that the FFA is a great organization to join.  Overall for this unit I was able to contact and communicate with multiple school leaders on how to implement the PALS leadership lesson.  We relied on community resources and equipment through acquiring the proper materials to put together the resources.  We also utilized a guest speaker who is certified in elementary education to share with us a perspective on how to design lessons for younger students.  Even though I am no longer physically at Shippensburg High School I will still be in communication via email and Skype as needed with the students and Mrs. Bier to ensure that everything goes as planned with the lessons.