Small Farms (STEAM Project-Based Learning)

This STEAM unit is about the needs and challenges of smallholder farms, which grow food and natural resources on a small scale, often depending on the labor of a family or village, and how scientific innovation may help these small farms. This unit includes a realistic fiction story, “Helping Farmers,” a nonfiction article, “Smallholder Farmers,” and a “The Science of Crops” science connection, as well as art and technology connection activities and a career spotlight activity. The STEAM Task for this unit is for students to design a small farm that could provide for the food needs of a small village and for students to create a map of the farm.