Plants solve problems of survival: intermediate unit
Series: Adopt-A-Watershed Program.
Grades: 5
ENC#: ENC-019697
Edition: Botany for all ages: Second edition.
Publisher: Adopt-A-Watershed Program
Date: 1993
Ordering Information
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Subjects:
 | Science
Adaptations. Environment. Life Science. Physiology. Plants. |
Resource Type:
Lessons and activities; Teacher guides.
Abstract:
This curriculum unit, developed for grade 5 students as part of the ADOPT-A-WATERSHED CURRICULUM, has lessons that allow students to investigate how wild animals live and interact. The curriculum uses the local watershed as a focus for applying and integrating scientific theories. It was written and field tested by teachers and reviewed by natural resource and education professionals. The curricular program intends to instill the importance of environmental stewardship in students, nurture their decision-making skills, and illustrate the relevance of science to their lives. Each curricular unit has cross-curricular hands-on activities, long-term field studies, and restoration projects as well as community action projects and reflection activities. A curriculum unit matrix identifies the unit components by grade level. Topics covered in this unit include the relationship between structure and function that allows plants to withstand forces in their environment, uptake water and nutrients, and reproduce successfully. The unit also provides information about how people can maintain a healthy environment for native plant populations. Teaching tips discuss advance preparations to be made and a time line to follow.
One lesson that focuses on root strength allows students to observe that bean seeds will break through plaster and contribute to the weathering process of rocks. The students also take a walk during which they test the holding power of plants by pulling and digging them up. Another lesson integrates activities from the accompanying BOTANY FOR ALL AGES BOOK as students investigate how water and gases are transported through stems and are exchanged through leaves. The students use colored water to trace the flow of water up a celery stalk and compare the uptake of water in celery with and without leaves. They collect gases released from aquatic plants in different environmental conditions. The lessons identify the time requirements and process skills that are developed. Supplemental reproducible sheets are included. (Author/JR)
Table of Contents:
[Text:]
Overview
Lesson 1. What's the problem?
Lesson 2. Plant parts
Lesson 3. Out with the old, in with the new
Lesson 4. My six questions about plants
Lesson 5. Life cycle of a flowering plant
Lesson 6. Root power
Lesson 7. Totally tubular!
Lesson 8. Hold on!
Lesson 9. Another reason for roots
Lesson 10. Water movement through plants
Lesson 11. Looking at leaves
Lesson 12. Flower day
Lesson 13. Invent a flower
Lesson 14. Fruits and seeds
Lesson 15. Wildflower awareness: a community action project
Lesson 16. Restoration project
Lesson 17. Plant population study
Lesson 18. Design a plant: assessment activity
Resources
Equipment
[Botany for all ages]
Foreword to the second edition, by Chet Raymo
Foreword to the first edition, by Thomas Buehter
Introduction
Introduction to teaching with plants
1. Becoming environmentally aware through activities using plants
2. Creating an environment for learning
3. When the learners teach the teachers
4. Botany for all: special needs children out of doors
5. Structuring the excursion
6. Up your sleeve: devices to enhance learning situations
7. Individual learning styles: different people learn in different ways
8. The art of learning
9. Ideas for art projects using plant material
10. An example of an art activity: dyeing with plant materials
11. Activities for the senses and the imagination
12. Inventing seeds that can travel
13. Ways to exercise the senses
14. Enhancing observational skills
15. Centering
16. Approaches to centering
17. The learner as teacher and vice versa
18. To have and to hold
19. Scavenger hunts: creative collecting
20. Developing environmental values
21. Endangered plants
22. Do you have to know the names? A rationale for correct identification
23. Activities for identifying species
24. Developing a vocabulary for appreciating and identifying plants
25. Creating a key for species identification
26. Study sheets
Activities for learning about plants
27. Seaweed prints
28. Fern activities
29. Mushroom collecting
30. Haircap moss rain meter
31. To pick or not to pick a flower
32. Tiny flowers on the playground
33. Learning the names for parts of flowers
34. Sorting flowers
35. Comparing garden flowers with wild relations
36. Inventing flowers
37. Calendar of bloom
38. Nectar guides: road signs for pollinators
39. Trick-a-bee: designing flowers to attract bees
40. Being Bees: exploring pollinating flowers
41. Weather conditions and pollinating insects
42. Violets: discovering the hidden, self-pollinating flowers
43. Wind pollinated flowers
44. Grass watching
45. The giant female flower: corn
46. Connecting flowers with seed production
47. Self-pollinating an amaryllis to produce fertile seeds
48. The kitchen as a source of seeds
49. Activities using collections of seeds
50. Growing pot herbs from seeds
51. Which are fruits, which are vegetables?
52. Hidden seeds in the winter earth
53. Growing peanuts from seeds
54. Is it ripe?
55. Windborne seeds
56. Seeds that hitchhike
57. Seeds that float in water
58. Floating cranberries
59. Berries and the beasts
60. Plants and their offspring: a search for origins
61. Sumac-ade
62. Acorn play
63. Pinecone rain meter
64. Making raisins
65. Pumpkins: beyond the Jack-o'-lantern
66. Ripening fruit using ethylene gas
67. A coat for a seed
68. Sprouts: meeting them and eating them
69. Sprouting gestures
70. Cooked beans, live beans
71. Experiments in finding starch in plants
Various parts of plants: names and functions
72. Water movement through plants: the veins
73. Making leaf skeletons
74. How the leaves help pull water through the plant
75. Gases also come out of leaves
76. A leaf is full of water
77. A wilting contest
78. Using leaves in art projects
79. Response to stem damage
80. Does a plant need to breathe?
81. The holding power of roots
82. Carrot machine
83. Responses in roots
84. Some food crops that also serve as storage areas for plants
85. A rose is a rose is a cabbage bud
86. Paperwhites: growing spring flowers from bulbs indoors
87. Using information about plant parts in a game
88. Bring trees into the classroom
89. How many leaves on a tree?
90. The autumn leaves
91. Estimating the height of a tree
92. Looking into tree buds
93. Twigs
94. Finding the ages of young pine trees
95. Bark cork
96. Hardwood, softwood
97. Explorations using lumber and cross sections of wood
98. Comparing leaves of deciduous trees and evergreens
99. General instructions for growing plants in pots
100. Experiments with growing plants
101. Propagation of plants from cuttings: new plants from old
102. Poking into the soil
103. Soil as an art medium
104. Acid soil or alkaline soil
105. Plant food: fertilizer supplements
106. Open terrariums
107. The effects of sunlight or soil on a plant species
108. Body language in plants
109. Plants that move on their own
110. Row plantings as environmental indicators
111. Plants as indicators of roadside pollution
112. Charts and graphs: facts at a glance
113. Plant math: growth curves and averaging data
114. Activities to practice the art of careful looking: transects and quadrats
115. Background activities for understanding plant succession
116. Developing an awareness of a habitat: ways of describing and giving it value
117. Seasonal changes in a special plant
118. Dandelions from top to bottom
119. Winter rosettes: wild and cultivated
120. Outdoors in the rain
121. Plants as historical indicators
122. Creating imaginary plants to fit special environments
123. Creating animals to go with the plants
124. Insects on plants
125. Investigating a rotting log
126. Beetle writing under bark
127. Bird nests
128. Who eats whom (with a plug for endangered species)
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Pricing Information:
 | Description: 1 kit | Cost: $55.00 | Order#: plantsc | |
Publisher:
Adopt-A-Watershed Program Notes:
Hunken, John and The New England Wild Flower Society. Botany for all ages : discovering nature through activities for children and adults. Second edition. Old Saybrook, CT : The Globe Pequot Press, c1993. Contributor(s):
| Authors: New England Wild Flower Society; Jorie Hunken; Alysia Krapfel; Bob Miller; Kim Stokely. |
Specifications:
Kit includes:
1 text (approximately 100 pages, loose-leaf : illustrations ; 30 cm.)
1 copy of Botany for all ages (viii, 184 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm.)
2 folios (each, 4 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.)
Record Created: 07/25/2001 Last Modified: 04/13/2005
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