Curated OER
Plant Parts Chapter #3
A few diagrams and bullet-point notes fill the 24 slides of this presentation on plant parts. The content is advanced enough for high school or college botany courses. The diagrams, however, are of substandard quality and quantity. You...
Curated OER
Life Cycle of Brassica Plants: Planting Seeds
Students explore botany by participating in a calendar class activity. In this plant observation lesson, students examine a diagram of a Brassica plant and identify its anatomy before planting their own seeds and viewing the changes over...
Curated OER
Bud the Spud Moves West
As part of a unit on Canadian agriculture, this focuses on how potato farms have increased in the west. Pupils participate in a discussion about the impact of consumer demand on production, and then they read an article about potato...
MDE k-12
Lesson 5: The Journey Becomes Larger Than Life!
Many muralists throughout history have focused on using their art to represent aspects of their culture or community. After thoroughly researching several muralists, budding artists will create a larger than life mural that contains...
Curated OER
Ghostbusting in the Chesapeake
Ghost pots, fishing gear lost during crabbing expeditions, continue to trap crabs that are never collected. Increase your budding ecologists' awareness of human impact on the environment as well as conservation efforts using this...
Curated OER
Bursting Blooms- Create an Early Spring
Young scholars prune a tree. In this gardening instructional activity, students select a shrub or tree that has a lot of flower buds and use sharp pruners to cut sections of branches. Young scholars place the cuttings into cool water...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: It's Pumpkin Time (Hall)
Looking for a Halloween-themed vocabulary activity? Study words in context using Zoe Hall's story It's Pumpkin Time, an excellent informational text for budding readers. The spooky suggested words are: buds, gather, hollow,...
Curated OER
Where are Koalas on the Food Chain?
Take a field trip to observe Koalas, absolutely! Budding scientists become familiar with the Koala's position in the food chain. They answer questions based on what they see and draw a food chain explaining the Koalas position. Tip: A...
Nuffield Foundation
Identifying the Conditions Needed for Photosynthesis
Budding biologists often ask how scientists know what they do about different topics. In the lab described here, they have a chance to find out first-hand about the requirements for photosynthesis. Three sequential investigations are...
Montana Natural History Center
Studying Grassland Ecosystems
At first glance, grassland ecosystems might seem dull and uninteresting, but once you start to explore it's amazing the things you'll find! Through this series of engaging lessons, activities, and experiments, elementary students examine...
Curated OER
Information from Posters
Budding journalists examine and evaluate an informative poster advertising a public meeting to discuss city park issues. They write a paragraph explaining what they found to be effective and ineffective about the poster, then imagine...
Curated OER
Lizard Lab
For this detailed and comprehensive multi-day activity, budding evolutionary biologists use real data from lizard populations in the Canary Islands to examine evolution and natural selection.
Berkshire Museum
Adopt a Schoolyard Tree
Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...
The Science Spot
Flower Basics
Learn about plants and pollination with a worksheet about the parts of a flower. After labeling the anatomy of a flower using a word bank, kids explain the difference between self-pollination and cross-pollination, and unscramble the...
Mathed Up!
Frequency Polygons
Frequency polygons are a different way to represent frequencies over intervals. Pupils take frequencies for intervals of data from a frequency table and plot them as a frequency polygon. Budding mathematicians find information about the...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Albedo, Reflectivity, and Absorption
What is reflectivity, and what does it have to do with the Earth's climate? As reflectivity is measured by albedo, scientists can gather information on Earth's energy balances that relate to global warming or climate change. Budding...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Understanding the Greenhouse Effect
Dive into the power of the sun with a two-part activity. Budding scientists model the greenhouse effect in a hands-on activity, and then participate in a skit that explores the earth's energy balances and what really occurs in the...
Curated OER
Don't Wait, Just Propagate
Students explore the process of growing plants from seed. In this propagation lesson, students examine methods of propagation and determine how to rapidly propagate plant species. Students listen to a lecture informing them on the topic...
Curated OER
Making Pretzels
Students discover that plants provide food products to humans. For this baking lesson, students grind wheat seeds into flour and then use the flour to make pretzels. Students participate in a variety of activities that involve them in...
Curated OER
Weeds-Wild and Wonderful
Students compare and contrast weeds and desirable plants. They explore the ways which their ancestors used weeds and depended on them for food and other household necessities.
Curated OER
Spring is Sprung
Students participate in a science experiment that shows them how water moves around in plants. They see how food coloring moves up a celery stalk to simulate how water moves up through roots in plants. They make predictions before the...
Curated OER
Introductory Bacteria and Virus Worksheet
Compare and contrast eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses with a chart and a Venn diagram. Beginning microbiologists consider motility, reproductive ability, DNA content, and the presence of organelles. They write short answers to...
Curated OER
Investigating the Effect of Minerals on Plant Growth
How do different minerals affect the growth of plants? Budding botanists find out in a multi-week experiment that has them using solutions with specific mineral deficiencies. While there is a lot of preparation for the investigation,...
Curated OER
Asexual Reproduction
Presented clearly and accurately, this PowerPoint introduces biology learners to asexual reproduction in plants. It begins by comparing asexual to sexual reproduction by definition and by the pros and cons of each. The remaining slides...