Working in teams of four, students act as botanists and use non-fiction on-line text to conduct Self Organized Learning System (SOLE) research to uncover the needs and life cycle of a plant for the school garden.
Students explore outdoors to search for plant body parts (roots, stems, leaves, and flowers) and explain the function of each part of the plant as it relates to the plant’s survival. Students then research a vegetable from a list of vegetables commonly grown in a school garden in order to sketch that vegetable with body parts, describe the function of each part, and discuss which body parts are typically eaten. As a mathematics connection, students use triangles and quadrilaterals to create a model of a plant with all four main body parts.
Students will explore the garden/outdoor classroom for examples of different plant structures and determine how plants use these structures to meet their needs.
In this lesson, the students will be given time to create their own understandings about the parts of plants as they explore plants hands-on in the outdoor classroom.
STUDENT ACTIVITY -- 3rd -- NCThis is a distance-learning lesson students can complete at home.Students will pull weeds to explore plant structures that promote survival.This activity was created by Out Teach (out-teach.org), a nonprofit providing outdoor experiential learning to transform Science education for students in under-served communities. .
In this lesson, students will explain their observations and understanding of various plant's external parts and how they help the plant survive in its environment.