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Edible and Medicinal Plants: Field Trip Guide
Though it's designed to guide a field trip to the New York Botanical Garden, you could take resource like this one to a local park, wilderness area, school garden, or even a weedy empty lot. Middle schoolers identify plant parts and...
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Tree Cookies
Young scholars identify heartwood, sapwood, and a tree's annual rings, infer from a tree's rings what damage or stress might have occurred in its life, and make a time-line of human history that coincides with a tree's rings.
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Prairie Find Outdoors
Students take a field trip to a local prairie. Using identification books, they identify various forbs and grasses in the prairie. As a class, they discuss the importance of forbs and grasses to the ecosystem and review the various types...
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Invasives and Macroinvertebrates
Students view macroinvertebrates, or discuss previous collection activity. They graph data on macroinvertebrates in the Hudson River. Students discuss the relationship between habitat, environmental changes, and invertebrate diversity or...
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Let's Get Carried Away
Students discover how seeds travel from their parent plants in search of water, sunlight, and nutrients, and conduct experiments in which they note characteristics that encourage seed dispersal by means of wind, water, animal carriers,...
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What is Sand?
Students complete a sand analysis project. In this sand grains lesson, students learn background information on how sand is formed and what sand grains are made of. Students are given bags of sand and use them to complete a worksheet...
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Teaching Kids about the Environment
Fifth graders identify the species of plants and animals found in an environment. They compare these findings to plant and animal species found in an unlike environment. Students acquire and compare soil samples from the two sites chosen.
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What Is in a Rock?
Middle schoolers identify, sort, and classify mineral samples that make up a common rock.
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Dissolved Oxygen in an Aquatic Ecosystem
Students explain why dissolved oxygen is important in aquatic ecosystems. They evaluate the optimal dissolved oxygen levels for living organisms.
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Seed Sorting
Students examine and sort seeds. In this life science lesson plan, students make general observations of a tub of seeds, then develop sorting criteria for sorting the deeds. Lesson includes extension activities.
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Chemistry is Crystal Clear
Young scholars observe crystals and their shapes and formation. In this crystal formation lesson, the teacher prepares crystal gardens for the students to observe, then the class finds examples of crystals in nature and observe a teacher...
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Do You Know Bamboo?
Students understand the properties of Bamboo and what it can be used for. In this bamboo lesson, students with bamboo and compare and contrast to wood. Students share their findings.
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What's in Soil?
Students examine soil samples and make observations. In this soil lesson, students participate in experiments to determine the components (mineral matter, organic matter, water air) in the soil. Students analyze a pie graph on the...
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Invertebrate Diversity
Students observe different animals with bilateral symmetry. In this biology lesson plan, students compare how these animals move. They discuss the evolutionary history of observed animals.
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Sight
Students discover how the sense of sight helps us recognize each other and explore color, motion and distance.
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All Sorts of Seeds!
First graders compare seeds and explore how they are carried through the environment.
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Plant Observation and Morphology
Students use plant specimens to explore how to recognize differences in plant morphology and to develop a vocabulary to describe these differences. They brainstorm: What is a plant? What parts do plants have? What is a leaf? Students...
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Smooth It Out
Fourth graders describe how weather events such as hard rains and floods cause weathering of the Earth's surface and rocks. They distinguish between erosion and weathering, and comprehend that water and friction show similar results in...
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Living and Nonliving
Students use their senses to record and collect data. In How Do I Classify Things in My World?, students practice classifying objects as living or nonliving. In Is it Real Or Pretend?, students group objects as real or pretend. In What...
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Owl Pellets
Sixth graders investigate the role of owls in their ecosystem. In this food chain instructional activity, 6th graders illustrate an owl food chain, dissect an owl pellet, and analyze data. Students discuss what would happen to owls if...
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Insect Inquiries
Students explore the topic of insects. In this biology lesson plan, students develop a curiosity about the insect world. Students will collect and observe insects native to the area.
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Cereals
Learners watch television commercials, then analyze the nutritional value of the cereals. For this health and nutrition lesson, the teacher shows students several cereal commercials, then the learners describe the cereals. Students read...
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Life in a Forest Stream
Students assess macro-invertebrates from a stream. In this science lesson plan, students observe, classify and identify organisms found in a stream. A lab station is constructed at the stream sight and students study the different...
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Too Bee Or Not To Bee
Students recognize that bees are important in the reproduction of plants and to the survival of animals. In this bee lesson, students become familiar with the parts of bees and how those adaptations help them pollinate plants. Students...