I recently received the first seed catalog in the mail. For those of us in the northern states, seeing the pictures of flowering plants is a harbinger of spring! In the same delivery was this issue of S&C, themed around plants. A coincidence?
Growing bean seeds is a standard activity in elementary science and a great way to learn about parts of a plant. This is also an effective medium for designing and implementing controlled experiments, and the authors of the articles in this issue have many suggestions for differentiating this activity so that the students aren’t doing the same thing each year.
In addition to the web resources at the end of each article, NSTA’s SciLinks database has dozens of websites related to plants. Enter plant as a keyword to get lists of websites related to plant growth, tropisms, plants as food, structure of seed plants, and parts of a plant.
Some of my favorites include Celebrating Wildflowers from the National Park Service, The Great Plant Escape from the University of Illinois (a Spanish version is available), and the Biology of Plants from the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The Teachers’ Domain website has several lesson plans related to plants. Living Life as a Plant and How Do Plants Get Energy are designed for the upper elementary grades. Exploring Plants and Plant Life Cycles are appropriate for the primary grades. All of these lessons incorporate multimedia and graphics as resources.
Horticulture: Just for Kids from Texas A&M University has suggestions for planting a school garden. If you’re not sure what to plant, the Montgomery County (MD) Department of Environmental Protection has suggestions for what to include in a Colonial Herb Garden (featuring plants found in colonial days) and a Shakespeare Herb Garden (plants mentioned in his plays). These lists may be of interest to your colleagues at the secondary level. I’ve also heard of schools planting “pizza gardens” with tomatoes, peppers, onions, basil, and oregano.
For more information on school and community gardens, check the KidsGardening website. Feel free to add your own suggestions as a comment here. Think Spring!