Wheat Week
Wheat Week Lessons
Day 1: What is Wheat?
Students explore the wheat plant as a system of parts. Discuss implication of inputs and outputs to the system and how that affects the plant. Learn what makes wheat grow as they create their own wheat terrariums to observe throughout the week.
Day 2: Water in our World
Explore the water cycle, including precipitation, evaporation, condensation and collection through classroom participation. Students model the water cycle as they play a game and travel to various locations as a drop of water.
Day 3: Amazing Soils
Differentiate between the three soil textures (sand, silt and clay) based on particle size and permeability through a hands-on demonstration. Discover how soil is made. Discuss the properties of soil and their importance to farmers and community members.
Day 4: Wheat DNA
Learn about the important contributions Norman Borlaug had on feeding the world in the 1970's. Students explore wheat classes, plant breeding, and DNA through a wheat germ DNA extraction experiment.
Day 5: Wheat Energy
Discover the importance of renewable and non-renewable energy. Learn about solar, wind and hydroelectric power. Students thresh a wheat plant to discover its energy source for humans and how it is transferred to us.
Wheat Week is a series of five lessons, delivered over the course of one week, educating students in 4th and 5th grade about water, soil, plant breeding, energy, systems, and wheat, and how they impact our lives.
Wheat Week is FREE and any school can request Wheat Week. Teachers are asked to plan together so each day 3-4 classrooms can receive the daily one-hour lesson.
All Wheat Week lessons are aligned with the
Next Generation Science Standards.
Each lesson takes approximately one hour each day.
To request Wheat Week, please contact
Mindy McAllister at MindyM@PalouseCD.org