Curated OER
Plant Diversity and Distribution
Students construct a defined plot on school grounds and observed patterns in plant life. They count trees, shrubs, cacti and record on a data sheet. They compare data and generate a plant diversity overlook for their school.
Curated OER
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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Changing Planet: Withering Plants - Stressing Over Lost Water
Expectant earth scientists examine the bottom side of a leaf and learn the role of the stomata. They consider the gas exchange that occurs through these structures and relate how the climate is changing to its impact on food crops. This...
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Flowers and Plants
Students are assigned to bring five flowers. They explore flowers to distinguish different physical features of flowers. They compare and contrast different flowers to determine what features they have in common. Students develop an...
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Diversity Ecosystems
Learners work in teams to characterize their biomes and compare them to the biomes of the rest of the class. In this biomes lesson plan, students complete a bean activity, relate it to the diversity in biomes, and then research and...
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Species and Specimens: Exploring Local Biodiversity
Students practice skills essential to all scientific investigation: carefully observing and collecting data. They become field biologists in a series of hands-on activities to collect and identify specimens, and survey and calculate the...
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Creating a School Herbarium
Students develop working knowledge of common plants and awareness of plant diversity by starting a school herbarium.
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How Toxic Is It?
Students participate in an activity in which they investigate the scientific method and seed germination as well as practice graphing and metric measuring skills. Students examine toxicity by exposing Wisconsin Fast Plants seeds to toxic...
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Prairie Scavenger Hunt
Middle schoolers take a close look at the prairie environment. They identify common plants and animals of the prairie. In addition, pupils work in teams in order to put together a presentation on a certain aspect of the prairie...
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Prairie Math
Students work together to build models of prairie plants. Using the model, they estimate the height and then measure them using metric and standard units. They write a fraction to represent their part of the whole set and compare and...
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Cloning Animals and Plants: Any Difference?
Learners examine the process in which plants and animals are cloned. They compare and contrast the two procedures and determine if there is a difference. They share their views on cloning to the class.
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Plants and Animals of Great Bay Animals and Plants of the Estuary
Students participate in a webquest about the plants and animals that inhabit an estuary. They role play as environmentalists researching this habitat and present the results of their research in a creative way.
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Aquatic Times
Learners identify a diversity of issues related to aquatic organisms and habitats and develop their own opinions concerning some issues involving aquatic life and habitats. They investigate, write and produce a newspaper that features...
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Fire Fighting
Students consider the effects of a wildfire on prairie life. They explore the ways that plants regenerate after a fire and create fictional plants that have adapted specifically to the prairie environment. They share models of their plants.
Curated OER
Wildlife Conservation III
Discuss the importance of wildlife conservation. Learners talk about the animals and plants on the US Fish and Wildlife Services list of endangered and threatened species. Then, they engage in a detailed discussion of the reasons these...
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Populations- The Survival of the Fittest
Students examine the ways that populations become diverse and how mutation changes the diversity of a population. In this exploratory lesson students study natural selection by completing a lab activity and discussing what they learned.
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Plants in Your Gas Tank: From Photosynthesis to Ethanol
Explore ethanol and how it is produced. Young scientists investigate photosynthesis and fermentation to the concept of conservation of energy and mass. They discuss the environmental and economical benefits of ethanol as a fuel additive.
University of Colorado
Punnett Squares with Piebald Deer
Explore the science behind Earth's amazing diversity of life with this lesson plan on genetics. Looking at specific traits in piebald deer, carnations, and roan cattle, young scientists use Punnett squares to determine the possible...
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Invasive Aquatic Plant Identification
Young scholars observe aquatic plants and animals and identify their systems. In this plants and animals lesson plan, students compare systems of organisms and orally express how plants and animals rely on each other.
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Plants / Animals Seen by Lewis & Clark
Learners conduct research to find references to plants or animals and their uses by Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery by using materials available such as journals, books, internet sources, library materials. Groups create a...
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Measuring Biodiversity
Students explore a few key concepts associated with measuring biodiversity. They are told that biodiversity can be measured in a number of ways. Genetic diversity is a measure of the genes represented in the sample. Ecosystem...
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Alien Invasions!
Students use video and Internet components, to gain an understanding of non-native invasive plants and animals and the ecological and monetary problems they cause.
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Renewable Energy Plants in Your Gas Tank: From Photosynthesis to Ethanol
Learners examine the role photosynthesis plays in plant survival. In this renewable energy lesson plan students document their observations and analyze and interpret their results.
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Wetland Transects
Students lay out transect lines beside a local stream or river. There they record species of plants and insects living around the stream. By doing so, students explore how to use transect sampling techniques, use a variety of methods to...