As the autumn days begin to cool and the nights prepare for our first freeze, students around the country will study the ritual of the harvest. It is the culmination of all the hard work on the farm, a milestone in the time of a year, and the foreboding precursor of the winter yet to come. In a past issue I approached this in Fall Themes <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/innovative-teaching/message/209>: colorful foliage, Halloween, Thanksgiving and the like. But this year I wanted to take a closer look at farming and harvest itself, because it offers more meat for your curriculum than those general themes.

I am launching the fourth edition Presidents' Project this month. Participating classes select a President to research (family, youth, education, career, administration, accomplishments, home state) and then create a world class website sharing all they've learned. You can see some example at http://surfaquarium.com/rollcall.htm. If you're interested drop me an e-mail or sign up at the official site at http://surfaquarium.com/prezregister.htm.

• Corn Cam - http://www.iowafarmer.com/corncam/corn.html
  What could be more American than corn growing on an Iowa farm? This site allows you to view the Iowa fields as farmers prepare for their harvest on October 16th! Sharon Greif presents the Corn Cam Chronicle, with lots of plant growth information, and the 2001 planting archives and 2000 harvest scrap book add even more material for your students to consider. There is a SoybeanCam and a DairyCam, too. So you can expand your study beyond the cornfields.
• CyberSpace Farms - http://www.cyberspaceag.com/
  Kansas has gone cutting edge in the field of agriculture! This site uses an out-of-this-world theme to feature a look at Kansas farming, with a special focus on Cosmic Crops. There's a look at sorghums, what, corn, soybean and sunflowers, with super pages like the Fall Harvest Photo Album and Fall Harvest at the King's. The Cosmic Cafe page has recipes and lots of nutrition information for a great Health connection, and the Creature Feature includes Space Sheep, Cosmic Cows and Pig Planet.
• George Washington: Pioneer Farmer - http://www.mountvernon.org/pioneer/
  This page off of the Mount Vernon site takes students back two centuries to a Virginia plantation worked by our future first president. Here he grew wheat, corn, potatoes, buckwheat, oats, and rye and used cultivators, harrows, hoes, shovel plows, spikey rollers, barrel seeders and dung forks to get the job done. Learn more about his practice of new husbandry and view a Quicktime tour of the interior of his 16-sided barn. There are great tie-ins to science and social studies here.
• Growing and Harvesting Wheat by Hand - http://waltonfeed.com/old/wheat.html
  Walton Feed offers this beautiful presentation of how to grow and harvest wheat the old fashioned way - by hand! It covers planting, growing, cutting, stooking, threshing, separating the wheat from the chaff and yielding. Great pictures accentuate this tour of the process,including some ancient tools like the hand powered Chinese winnowing machine, a hand powered grinding mill from China and even an old, hand powered grain grinder from India. Comparisons are made with modern farming techniques to stimulate critical thinking.
• Kids Farm - http://www.kidsfarm.com/
  Primary teachers will love this musical site on farm animals and crops on the Red Bluff Ranch in Colorado. The What Grows section nicely covers cherries, pears, apples, hay, peaches, apricots, wild asparagus, and even a farmers' market that takes place during harvest time. Each page has colorful, child-centered pictures and catchy tunes that make the immersion into farming that much more complete for little ones.
• Local Harvest - http://www.localharvest.org/
  Just type in your zip code and see a clickable map of your region. Select any of the trees on the map and a list of local farms immediately comes up! Click on the name of any farm to get more information about the proprietor, its location, and even the crops grown. There's even contact information in case you want to actually talk to the farmers and even plan a visit for your students.
• McCormick Farm - http://www.vaes.vt.edu/steeles/mccormick/mccormick.html
  Located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, this page covers Cyrus McCormick's many innovative farming inventions, including the reaper. One local link actually covers the history of harvesting tools from the sickle and scythe to the harvester-thresher with pictures and succinct descriptions of each. There's even an .mpg video of the McCormick grist mill water wheel.
• Pahiyas: A Phillipine Harvest - http://www.folklife.si.edu/festival98/phil98.htm
  This Smithsonian site offers a vicarious celebration of the Phillipine harvest (and concurrently Independence from Spain), with presentations of weaving, pounding, carving, a Sari-sari (General) store and even a Phillipine kitchen with two tasty recipes. Looking for other cultural celebrations of harvest? Check out the Chinese Harvest Moon Festival <http://www.montreal.com/events/1999/09/24moon.html> and Shavuot <http://www.holidays.net/shavuot/>.
• Seed to Harvest - http://www.willeyschristmastrees.com/seedharv.htm
  Willey's Christmas Tree Farm presents this online tour of the process of growing a Christmas tree, beginning with seed harvest and moving through planting, fertilizing, pruning and finally harvesting fully grown trees. Each step along the way features quickly loading images of the process along with well-worded captions to explain the purpose for each phase of the work.
• Vineyard Challenge - http://farmer.best.vwh.net/vineyard/
  Here's a simulation that gives your students a budget and requires them to make choices to purchase a vineyard and successfully grow grapes: cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, sémillon or zinfandel. Each step along the way students must consider caring for their crop through irrigation and pest control. Once they make a profit (or take a loss) from their first harvest, they can continue through subsequent growing seasons to practice their skills.
• Wheat Mania! - http://www.wheatmania.com/
  This site zooms in on real Kansas families and their harvests, like the Stoskopf, Ehmke and Clanton families and their lives as farmers. The sections on Prairie Skyscrapers lets students look inside the mechanics of a grain elevator, and All About Wheat and Flour Power will help your students learn more about the uses of this important agricultural crop. The trivia presented on Kansas, wheat and agriculture in general can be used to create fun learning games in your classroom.
• With These Hands - http://www.with-these-hands.org/
  This presentation shares the efforts of four Michigan farm families in Flash movie format (you'll need the free plugin from http://www.macromedia.com) that truly transports the viewer from their computer keyboard into the lives of these hardworking farmers. There's a digital map of Lelanau County and the Old Mission Peninsula where these families live, select online resources and a forum to share reactions with other visitors who have experienced this striking documentary.
  

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