Virtual Lessons & Programs
The Alice Ferguson Foundation has more than 60 years of experience leading and engaging students in engaged science learning. We are excited to bring you six robust online programs.
With the guidance of our experienced team of educators, students can learn about animal adaptations, investigate water quality through the identification of pollution-sensitive macroinvertebrates, understand and identifying invasive plant species, and explore how pollution impacts their communities.
Supplements In-Class Learning
Students learning from home take on real science challenges, like identifying macroinvertebrates, measuring water quality, and discuss the details and adaptations of an invasive plant or animal species.
Battles Screen Fatigue
Screen fatigue is real, so our programs combine a mixture of team building, engaging activities, and live field experiences.
Engaging and Hands-on Virtual Lessons
Our interactive science programs go beyond the Powerpoint to engage student minds, hands, and imaginations.
Real World Connections
Our team of experienced educators will draw vital connections between the science they are teaching and real-world lessons and implications of the content students are learning.
30-60 Minute Live Virtual Lessons
Choose from these live virtual lessons and bring interactive learning to your classroom
Discover Our Farm Animals | Grades PreK – 3
Title: Discover Our Farm Animals
Program: Students will experience our small 1950’s era working family farm and learn where their food comes from. Students will connect the animals they meet and the plants they observe to their survival needs and also connect them to the variety of products we use in our daily lives. They will explore the barnyard and pastures, meet goats, chickens, cows, and sheep, and connect food and fiber to their plant and animal sources.
Grade level bands: PreK-3
Garden & Pollinators | Grades PreK – 3
Title: Garden & Pollinators
Program: Through a virtual visit to our garden, students will explore the process of how their food gets from the farm to their plates. Students will examine nature’s food growing helpers, the decomposers that help make our soil and the pollinators that help plants to ensure next years’ harvest.
Grade level bands: PreK-3
Birds Up Close | Grades K – 6
Title: Birds Up Close
Program: Students will become birds as they experiment with the many ways birds use their adaptations to eat. Students will then use our extensive taxidermied bird collection to make scientific drawings to compare and contrast characteristics of the birds’ bodies and make a hypothesis about what type of habitat each bird would survive best in.
Grade level bands: K-6
Talking Trash | Grades 2-6
Title: Talking Trash
Program: Before joining this virtual lessons, students will journal about trash generated in their household to make inferences about lifestyle and consumer choices and determine how these choices have a lasting impact on their watershed. During the lesson, students will review their journals, identify and explain the sources of litter in our environment, and develop a solution for reducing the impacts of litter on the environment.
Grade level bands: 2-6
Great Terrain Robbery | Grades 2-8
Title: Great Terrain Robbery (Erosion)
Program: Students will participate in an experiment demonstrating erosion on various different types of surfaces. Students will make a hypothesis and put it to the test as they make observations of the way water behaves as it runs over an impervious surface, bare soil, and vegetation.
Grade level bands: 2-8
Macro-Invertebrate investigation | Grades 5-8
Title: Macro-Invertebrate investigation
Program: Students will investigate the structural and behavioral adaptations of live macro invertebrates (macros). Using a digital microscope, students will examine the macros closely and identify them with the help of an identification key. Macros can act as biological indicators of the health of our waterways. Students will then analyze their data and make a determination about the water quality of the stream that the macros were collected from.
Grade level bands: 5-8