Baylor College
Needs of Plants
What better way to learn about plant life than by creating a class garden? Young botanists start with a brief discussion about radishes before planting seeds and watching them grow. To determine the importance of water, sunlight, and...
Baylor College
Do Plants Need Light?
Turn your classroom into a greenhouse with a lesson plan on plant growth. First, investigate the different parts of seeds, identifying the seed coat, cotyledon, and embryo. Then plant the seeds and watch them grow! Measure the new plants...
Baylor College
What's Is Soil Made Of?
It's time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty in the second instructional activity of this series on the science of food. Investigate where plants and animals get the minerals they need to live in this two-part exploration of...
Baylor College
Plant or Animal?
Teach your class about the necessities of life using the book Tillena Lou's Day in the Sun. After a teacher-read-aloud, students make puppets depicting different plants and animals from the story and illustrating the habitat in which...
University of Wisconsin
Bimodel Botany Bouquet
Gardeners are given an individual plant specimen from a bouquet of local rain garden plants. They group up by their plant type and then make observations together, name the plant, and introduce it to the rest of the class. You then share...
Berkshire Museum
The Three Life-Giving Sisters: Plant Cultivation and Mohican Innovation
Children gain first-hand experience with Native American agriculture while investigating the life cycle of plants with this engaging experiment. Focusing on what the natives called the Three Sisters - corn, beans, and squash - young...
Baylor College
Needs of Living Things: Pre-Assessment
Determine your class's prior knowledge about the necessities of life with this pre-assessment for a unit on living things. Learners draw pictures of themselves with all the things they need to live, grow, and survive. These drawings will...
Curated OER
Plant Lifecycles
Students examine the life cycle of plants. In this plants lesson plan, students identify the various stages of plants and their parts. Students compare the life cycle of a plant with that of an animal. Activities suggested can be...
Channel Islands Film
Natural Resources, and Human Uses of Plants and Animals
As part of their study of the restoration projects on Santa Cruz Island, class members demonstrate their understanding of the connections among plant life, animals, and the actions of humans by crafting a model that reveals these...
Cornell University
Weed IPM
Go on a weed hunt! Scholars gain insight into the characteristics of plants and examine the outdoor environment in order to identify five different types of weeds. Learners then show what they know with a one-page reflection.
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Gardening
A Reading Adventure Pack invites scholars to start gardening. Following a reading of two books—fiction and nonfiction—young green thumbs repurpose food containers to grow an herb garden in their kitchen, plant seeds in starter pots out...
Curated OER
Plant Parts We Eat
I bet the kids in your class will love to eat their vegetables after an engaging lesson plan about edible plants. They read information about vegetables and edible plants, sort vocabulary words, identify plant parts, measure and graph...
Illustrative Mathematics
Growing Bean Plants
Plant growth experiments offer rich, cross-curricular learning opportunities that can really excite and engage young learners. In this series, children work in pairs planting, measuring, and comparing the height of bean plants in order...
Desert Discovery
Saguaro Parts
Young biologists identify the basic structures of a saguaro cactus. They study the functions of each of the structures, and label them on a picture of a saguaro cactus embedded in the plan. This simple, and easy-to-implement lesson would...
Terminix
The Pollinator
What do bees and children have in common? They both love their sweets. Decorate a flower pot or bucket to look like a brightly colored flower and fill it with wrapped candy and cheese puffs. Have learners reach into grab the candy,...
Curated OER
Plants: Scattering Seeds
Middle schoolers collect and microscopically examine seeds from the school yard and neighborhood. In small groups, they draw and discuss the shapes of the seeds to determine each plant's method of dispersal. they also test two types of...
Curated OER
Milkweed Plants
Second graders view milkweed plants (or pictures). The describe the plant and discuss ways some butterflies use it as a food source. Students view four pictures of different phases of a milkweed plant's life cycle. They discuss the...
Curated OER
Eat Your Plants
Students explore fruits and vegetables. In this fruits and vegetables lesson plan, students work in small groups investigating plant parts. Students discover that fruits and vegetables originate from different parts of plants.
Curated OER
Edible Plants
Students determine what part of a plant they are eating when they eat different fruits and vegetables.
Curated OER
The Body Part of Cells
Eighth graders are introduced to cell organelles and their functions and the they define the differences between animal and plant cells. They write a paragraph explaining the difference between plant and animal cells and students...
Curated OER
Coral Polyp Party
Students complete a project where they label the parts of a coral polyp and discuss the differences between plants and animals. Students use marshmallows, sprinkles, toothpicks, and more to label their coral polyp.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Preparing for Project BudBurst
Male deer growing antlers to begin the breeding season is an example of a phenological event. First in a four-part series is an activity requiring individuals to collect phenological data on their campus. Classes discuss phenology, the...
US Mint
Desert Dwellers
What can a quarter possibly teach young learners about desert ecosystems? More than you might think. After displaying and discussing the included picture of the Arizona state quarter, the class participates in a series of shared reading...
Curated OER
Life Cycle of Trees
Turn your students into young tree-tectives with this fun science investigation into the life of trees. To begin, a class volunteer gets dressed up in a tree costume as the different parts of trees are introduced. Then, the class learns...