Virtual Lessons

As former classroom teachers, Amy Bowman and Doug Vernon understood the time and technology constraints that teachers faced as they juggled a new virtual classroom dynamic. Currently working as Extension professionals supporting STEM education at NC State’s Plants for Human Health Institute, these two embraced an outreach opportunity, first to develop videos that might be incorporated into lessons that teachers were assembling and ultimately building complete virtual lessons ready to share with a single link. We invite you to explore the videos and interactive lessons, share them with your colleagues and freely use them to lighten the load and engage 1st-5th grade students.

Local collaboration yields statewide application

For five years, Amy and Doug have been working to support STEM education, and specifically, school garden education throughout the state. Based at the NC Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC, the proximity to Cabarrus County Schools and Kannapolis City Schools has facilitated a strong working relationship. When Cabarrus County Schools opted to start the 2020-21 school year in Plan C, Amy and Doug reached out to Jessica Enlow, K-12 Science Instructional Specialist, to see if there were specific needs they could fill that would support teachers. Between Covid restrictions for NC Cooperative Extension and limited access to school buildings and grounds, Amy and Doug recognized that site visits, professional development trainings and other typical outreach activities would be curtailed. 

Together, they identified standards for subjects ranging from plants to genetics to nutrition, for 1st through 5th grades. Amy and Doug committed to delivering a ready-to-share lesson using Google Slides, a platform accessible in Google Classroom or Canvas, the two prevalent learning management systems at the elementary level. With the completion of this effort, initially developed for one school system, we’d like to share them broadly for greater impact–on teachers and students–as we continue to navigate the fluidity of the school year.

Lesson logistics

Each virtual lesson plan identifies the grade level, standards covered, how the objectives are met through the 5 E’s and a link to the interactive Slides presentation. Each virtual lesson link will prompt the user to “Save a copy” to your Google Drive. Teachers can edit the presentation to customize it, or share it directly with their students, who will likewise be instructed to “save a copy.” This facilitates the students ability to individually complete the interactive tasks and share any completed assignments with their teacher. 

We look forward to adding more lessons to our library of resources found on our website. The list below virtual lessons that are currently available. We hope that they will be beneficial to North Carolina educators and students. 

Survival: What do Plants and Animals Need? 1st grade: Ecosystems 

All in the Family 2nd grade: Evolution and genetics 

Puzzling Over Plants  3rd grade: Plant parts

Soils: Let’s Dig In! 3rd grade: Soil layers 

Smart Smoothies 4th grade: Nutrition 

Strawberry DNA Extraction 5th grade: Evolution and genetics