Canadian Agriculture at a Glance Teacher's Kit > Lesson plans

Lesson: The little devils are everywhere!

View the article (PDF)
Introduction
Curriculum connections
Notes to teacher
Teaching and learning strategies
Assessment/evaluation strategies
Accommodation and enrichment strategies
Links to other activities
Suggestions for further research

Introduction

This activity focuses on dairy goats, their care and their increasing place in the Canadian food supply system.

Curriculum connections

Geography

• demonstrates an understanding of the diversity of agricultural endeavours in Canada.

Family Studies/Home Economics

• identifies food supply and production industries in Canada.

 Science

• explains how agriculture and technology interact with each other.

Notes to teacher

In this unit, which corresponds to the chapter "Farm Profiles" in the book, activities can be done co-operatively as a group. Students can be divided into groups of "experts" to learn about one of the farms profiled; they can then teach the rest of the class about their topic. (PDF)

Teaching and learning strategies

1. Students read the article "The little devils are everywhere!" on pages 97 to 102 in Canadian Agriculture at a Glance. (PDF)
2. After reading the article, students answer the following questions:
1. What do goats eat?
2. What products come from goats?
3. How much milk does a goat produce in a year?
4. How has the goat industry in Canada changed over the past few censuses?
5. How can a farmer improve the herd? What benefits does it bring?
6. Which provinces have the most goat farms and the most goats?
3. Students create a picture story poster of a day in the life of a dairy goat.
4. Students taste goat's milk, and compare it to cow's milk.
5. Students add terminology to their glossaries.

Assessment/evaluation strategies

1. Assess answers for completion and accuracy.
2. Evaluate poster.
3. Assess glossaries for accuracy and completion.

Accommodation and enrichment strategies

1. Some students may require assistance in order to complete written work.
2. Students with special needs may work with a partner to complete a task.
3. Templates for note-taking should be provided to students with special needs.
4. Main ideas and/or new information should be mapped out and organized to meet the needs of all students.
5. Wherever possible, vocabulary lists should be provided with a discussion of context clues and related vocabulary.
6. For enrichment, students can find out about the daily care of another animal.
7. For enrichment, students can visit a farm with dairy goats.

Links to other activities

This activity is linked to:

• Bud the Spud moves west
• What's in your grocery cart?
• What's growing under glass?
• Fresh produce north of 60
• From Concord to Chardonnay: Canada's grape transformation
• Little bees, big potential
• Tapping the Manitoba maple - a Prairie cottage industry
• Stop the car! Are those llamas in that field?
• From wild beast to docile partner
• A science-fiction harvest

Suggestions for further research

• Students can compare the size of a goat herd and the number of goat farms with those of other livestock farms in Canada. How does the total number of goats compare with the numbers of cattle, pigs, sheep and other farm animals?
• Students can use 2001 Census of Agriculture data in E-STAT for data analysis, graphing and mapping activities for specific geographic areas of local interest.

Please send comments or examples of how you used this lesson in your class to Learning Resources.

You need to use the free Adobe Reader to view PDF documents. To view (open) these files, simply click on the link. To download (save) them, right-click on the link. Note that if you are using Internet Explorer or AOL, PDF documents sometimes do not open properly. See Troubleshooting PDFs. PDF documents may not be accessible by some devices. For more information, visit the Adobe website or contact us for assistance.