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...
Curated OER
Life Cycle of Trees
Turn your learners into young tree-tectives with this fun science investigation into the life of trees. To begin, a class volunteer gets dressed up in a tree costume as the different parts of trees are introduced. Then, the class...
Virginia Department of Education
Weather Patterns and Seasonal Changes
Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a activity highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...
Minnesota Department of Natural Resoures
Getting to Know Trees
Celebrate the beauty of trees with a packet full of activities designed to help kindergarteners get to know about their leafy nature friends. Covering a variety of subjects, scholars go on a nature hike, read Shel Silverstein's The...
Captain Planet Foundation
Adopt-A-Plant
Note the way that plants change during the season by adopting a plant on your school campus. After your class chooses their plant, they research the plant's needs, how it differs from other plants, find ways to support their plant's...
National Wildlife Federation
Branching Out – Exploring Dendrochronology
Tree rings from North America give a continuous history of El Nino intensity over the last 1,100 years. Scholars learn how scientists use tree rings to create timelines demonstrating variations in weather patterns. The cumulative...
US Environmental Protection Agency
Tree Rings: Living Records of Climate
Open with a discussion on weather and climate and then explain how tree rings can provide scientists with information about the earth's past climate. Pupils analyze graphics of simulated tree rings from various US locations for the...
Curated OER
Seasoning the School Year
Learners observe the changes a class tree goes through as the seasons change and record observations in journals. They investigate changes in the weather, changes in the length of the day, and how that affects people. They create...
Minnesota Department of Natural Resoures
Tree Life
The life of a tree is the focus of a packet consisting of several activities all covering a different subject. Second graders measure shadows, make pinecone critters, write poems, count rings, complete a word search, play tree tag, and...
Curated OER
The Seasons
Students identify seasonal changes. In this seasons lesson, students choose a tree on the playground to observe each season. Students record their observations throughout the year and create personal seasonal booklets.
Curated OER
Seasons of Trees
Students examine how trees change over time. For this forestry lesson, students read the book The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree and choose three trees to observe over a period of time. Students record observations and seasonal changes...
Curated OER
Spring Time Trees/Flowers
Plan ahead! Integrate science and language arts! Schedule your reading of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe to coincide with the arrival of spring. As pupils read Chapter 11 of the Lewis classic, they are assigned one of...
Curated OER
Signs of Change: Tree Rings
Students identify and experiment with dendrochronology (the study of tree rings to answer ecological questions about the recent past) and come up with conclusions as to what possible climatic conditions might affect tree growth in their...
Curated OER
Apples and Seasons
Pupils identify and interpret the idea that apples grow on trees and that these apple trees change as the seasons change. Then they gain knowledge of seasonal changes through a creative art experience for the students. Pupils also...
Curated OER
Kindergarteners Study the Four Seasons
Examine the weather of the four seasons, look at seasonal activities, and tell which months are part of each season with this lesson. Your class will play a game, sing a song, and write additional stanzas to seasonal poetry.
Curated OER
Spring is Here
Students analyze changes between winter and spring. In this seasonal changes lesson, students read the story "Spring is Here." They record changes between winter and spring on a large chart paper. Students compare and contrast the...
Curated OER
Charting the Changes in Our School Forest
Fourth graders investigate the ecosystem and how forests are disappearing. In this environmental protection lesson plan, 4th graders analyze the changes in their school for 2 weeks. Students practice identifying trees, birds,...
Curated OER
Season of an Apple Tree
Students identify how seasonal changes affect plant growth. In this agricultural lesson, students read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree and are shown pictures of how apple trees blossom through the seasons. Students match each picture...
Curated OER
My Tree Book
Students "adopt" a tree and throughout the year record and examine its characteristics and the changes that it goes through.
Curated OER
Dating a Volcanic Eruption
Students discover the various ways in which tree rings can give information. After a brief disucssion of concentric tree rings, they use cross section cut outs of tree rings to identify the time and type of various naturally occuring...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Preparing for Project BudBurst
Male deer growing antlers to begin the breeding season is an example of a phenological event. First in a four-part series is an activity requiring individuals to collect phenological data on their campus. Classes discuss phenology, the...
Curated OER
Exploring Weather Conditions Through Painting
Your advanced class will paint a picture of a particular weather condition. In this painting lesson students describe elements of art in pieces of artwork. They analyze the weather and seasons in the artwork. The students use paper,...
Curated OER
Adopt a Tree
Students adopt tress on their school campus for scientific observation purposes. In this tree science lesson, students adopt a tree at their school, observe the season changes for the tree, and create a PowerPoint presentation about the...
Curated OER
Look At Those Leaves!
Students observe, measure, and sort tree leaves. They examine leaves individually, in groups, and in relationship to the entire tree. They become familiar with the seasonal changing of leaves. They realize that these and other changes...