This year, we are taking a cue from the honey bee, and trying our best to adapt to new environments. Whether this is an online classroom, part-time school, or full-time classroom planning, The Bee Cause Project is here to meet you where you are with plug and play pollinator lesson plans.

The Back to School Bee Program is built to begin with the Six Week Bee Unit and then adapt to your classroom as you see fit. The Six Week Bee Unit can be completed in sequence, or as individual lesson plans. Each of our new resources has teacher guides, are mapped to the standards, and are easily adapted to digital platforms.

Our mission is to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards while protecting our planet's most precious pollinators. The resources we have provided are designed to engage students through observation-based and hands-on learning with a little help from our tiny friends -- the bees! This unit of study has ample resources including teacher guides, video links, material lists, background information, standards mapping, and engaging work for students. 

Congratulations! You are about to improve pollinator habitats in your own space! Did you know that pollinators are responsible for one in three bites of food that you eat? Bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, beetles, and flies, to name a few, are responsible for so many delicious foods we enjoy. From chocolate and coffee to apples and watermelons, we need these vital creatures to pollinate 80% of all flowering species and 35% of the world’s crops! And you can do your part to help the pollinators with a few simple steps. View Resource to learn more! 

Learn how to make a pollinator garden and use the planning worksheet to start planning one for your home or school from Earthday.org!

In this 7th grade science lesson, students deepen their understanding of pollen and pollinators by practicing the use of microscopes to observe pollen and bee species from the garden.

In this 5 lesson set, students learn about the foraging behavior of bees and hypothesize if the bee’s behavior is related to its ability to detect sugar. Students will then determine which type of foraging bee would be best for pollination or honey production. Students will learn about the process of gel electrophoresis as a genetic tool and analyze DNA to identify strains of bees who are better pollen-collecting bees or better nectar-collecting bees.

The Great Sunflower Project is a great way to use Citizen Scientist's observations of bees nationwide to create an online map of the bee population with special attention given to sunflower pollinators. Your students can join the thousands of volunteers to gather pollinator information as part of this data collection. With the bee population in decline, students can actively assist in getting to the bottom of the causes of this environmental issue. There is an introductory video provided in English and Spanish by PBS, a Quick Start Guide, maps, opportunities to observe individual data, and loads of other resources to get your students outdoors and counting pollinators!

Did you know that honey bees dance? Or that they build their homes out of perfectly formed honeycomb? The Digital Hive Experience was created to educate about the inside of a beehive and our friends, the honey bees. Pair the Digital Hive Video with the companion Educator’s Guide! Included are a lesson plan mapped to the Common Core and NGSS, pre and post-assessments, discussion questions, and a KWL Chart for your students! Perfect for a classroom introduction or for programs that may not have live bees, we hope you enjoy your journey into the hive!

This Educators Guide provides everything you need to make this virtual field trip a huge success with your students! You will find lists of materials and resources, step-by-step instructions for three complete lessons, journal prompts as well as research topics, supplementary card work, and standards mapping.

Learn how to build a strong foundation for your Bee Program! Our most successful programs begin with a layer of lessons and curriculum. Here we share exactly how to start a Bee Program and grow from the bottom up! Whether or not you have live bees on your campus, this will help to grow a community around your buzzworthy educational endeavors!

The folders in this Group will provide curriculums, virtual field trips with lessons, suggested Citizen Science Projects, book clubs for kids with lessons, and relevant webinars and recordings to help any educator deliver quality instruction. All of our offerings have teacher guides, are mapped to the standards, and are easily adapted to digital platforms.

We recommend the educator work through each level of the How to Start + Grow Your Bee Program Pyramid by exploring the offerings within each Folder. The resources build on each other as the educator and students move through this learning pathway.

Scientists rely on Citizen Scientists to track the migration of the monarch butterflies as they journey north from Mexico and back again. This amazing pollinator begins its fall migration from August to November and spring migration from March to June. Students can follow migration news, see the real-time mapping of the butterfly's movements, and report their own sightings with this amazing project from the University of Wisconsin - Madison Arboretum.

This Reference Guide will provide the information you need for planting your pollinator garden box, maintenance on your mason bee house, suggestions for your Bee A Freind To Pollinators family event, and links for all of our lesson plans! 

Your neighborhood Whole Foods Market Southern Region believes that Libraries Need Bees Too! Through this grant, we hope to help you make small changes to improve pollinator habitats and promote even bigger changes in your community while supporting pollinator literacy. We’ve provided the tools that you need to create your own Bee A Friend to Pollinators Community Event this year. Read on to learn more!

An amazing musical and educational adventure podcast for the whole family! Original songs and stories by Julie Frost and Mike Dombrow.

Introduce your students to the health benefits of sweet potatoes with Charleston County School District Nutrition Services, the Green Heart Project, and The Bee Cause Project with this flier and worksheet.

So many of our flowers, fruit and vegetables need to be pollinated. Who are the pollinators and why is there so much buzz about helping bees? Check out the Bee Entomologist video to learn how the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla are researching and caring for the pollinators of their First Foods like huckleberries and cous roots. In the Discovery Challenge video, explore what insects and other invertebrates live in your yards and school yards. Then design, build and set out bee nests for native cavity nesting bees.

This lesson introduces NGSS standards, and those standards are listed in the lesson and is part of the Explore Science Club series, an online Career Connected Learning program developed by the Greater Oregon STEM Hub. To learn more find us at: www.go-stem.org.