The Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) has partnered with Cutting Edge Curriculum to teach agriculture to middle school students. Cutting Edge Curriculum is a not-for-profit corporation created by agricultural education advocates with a focus on curriculum development for Career and Technical Education (CTE) including Ag Education, Business, Family and Consumer Sciences, Health and Industrial Technology.
Cutting Edge Curriculum houses the MYCAERT system to provide this curriculum to teachers and students through an online subscription. The MYCAERT system delivers educators with lesson plans and support materials, signature E-Units for student use, and web-based assessments aligned to academic standards. ISA provided free subscriptions to this curriculum and online tools to students and teachers.
“Cutting Edge Curriculum greatly appreciates the partnership with Indiana Soybean Alliance to offer all Indiana agricultural educators with access to the Middle School Agriscience curriculum,” said Lindi Kocher, executive director of Cutting Edge Curriculum.
The middle school agriscience curriculum is designed to provide Indiana agricultural educators with the essential tools to stimulate student interest in the field of agriculture. The lessons use an inquiry-based format known as a 5E lesson plan. Each lesson encompasses the following: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate.
Within a 5E lesson, there are multiple student activities supporting inquiry-based instruction. This approach provides effective strategies while students learn to conduct investigations and dig further into a topic. Lessons are accompanied with student E-units, online assessments, and PowerPoints. An E-unit is a student textbook unit as it is written to match each lesson. Online assessments are completed by students while reports can display how students are achieving in relationship to academic standards.
The middle school agriscience program allows Indiana educators to access a sophisticated curriculum system. Educators, especially agricultural educators, have many responsibilities. Providing additional tools through a paid subscription not only allows for teachers to feel appreciated but provides them with an inquiry-based lessons to strengthen student knowledge.
Kocher said the curriculum is receiving rave reviews from Hoosier teachers.
Stacey Hartley has been a teacher at Tipton High School for 22 years. “MYCAERT is awesome,” she said. “It provides a reading opportunity. It provides pacing, and it provides the activities from start to finish. The whole lesson is there, and it covers the whole scope of concepts within the intro class. The 5E process has really made me think about my other classes, and how I approached that curriculum.”
Mel Lenig is in his second year of teaching eighth graders at Knox Middle School. “I started using MYCAERT in our middle school last year when I first started teaching eighth grade at Knox Middle School, and it’s worked out really well because it’s all divided up nicely,” Lenig said. “The kids really enjoy it. They like the pictures; they like the content. The kids have really latched on to using the integrated notes. Often everything they need for a test is in the integrated notes.”
He added that test scores have improved.
McCord Snider, a teacher at East Central Middle School in St. Leon, Ind., has been using the MYCAERT program for six years. “I actually was able to write some of the curriculum for this, so going from writing it to actually implementing it was very interesting,” Snider said. “Overall, I’ve seen a couple different versions from other companies. I think MYCAERT is the best, and it really provides students with engaging, hands-on applicable skills that can be used later in life.
For more information about the program, go online to www.mycaert.com.
