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Mini-Ponds
For this mini pond worksheet, students create a mini-pond ecosystem with soil, water, and plant life. Students let their ecosystem sit for a day and they observe a sample the next day. Students identify all the pond water microorganisms...
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Green Plants
Beginning botanists are introduced to the world of plants with this PowerPoint. Some of the information is most appropriate for primary learners, such as the needs of a plant. Some of the information, however, is more directed at...
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Blind as a Bat?
Imagine using your ears and voice to see. That is what bats do with echolocation. Demonstrate how echolocation works with this fun game for your classroom. Buzz, buzz!
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Are You What You Eat?
Young scholars observe what happens to the pigment of the Manduca when food coloring is added to their diet. They discuss how coloration affects their lifestyle. They answer questions to complete the lesson.
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Symbiosis: Help, Hinder or Destroy
Use background information and vocabulary to familiarize your students with the concept of symbiosis and the role agriculture plays in the shared relationship. They then write the vocabulary in their lab books or journals, and read the...
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Dirt Cups
After a hard day examining and dissecting worms, why not put your feet up and snack on a few? Here is a really cute idea that can be used to celebrate Earth Day or to accent a thematic learning experience. Kids use clay pots, gummy...
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Pollination Power
Young scholars go out into the garden and observe pollinating animals through hand lenses. In this pollination lesson plan, students also discuss how animals carry seeds to create new plants elsewhere.
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Metamorphosis Magic
Students make different motions for each stage in the butterfly life cycle and plant a garden. In this butterfly life cycle lesson plan, students can take the mini gardens home and discuss how butterflies help gardens.
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Producers and Consumers
Students make lists of producers and consumers and act as consumers that eat producers in a garden. In this producers and consumers lesson plan, students demonstrate a food chain by using a piece of yarn to connect all of them together.
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F.B.I.
Students create a worm bin full of fruit and vegetable scraps wit paper and observe what happens over time. In this decomposers lesson plan, students observe that the fruit and vegetable scraps become new soil.
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Manduca
Students study the definition of a "global society". They take this knowledge and speculate about the positive and negative ramifications of living in a global society.
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Up the Down Tree House
Students investigate the decomposition process. In this ecology lesson, students participate in a play, "Up the Treehouse" where the main idea focuses on a decomposing tree and how food chains are effected by decomposition. After the...
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Prairie Scales and Prairie Smoothies
Sixth graders explore the animals that live on the prairie and identify differences between amphibians and reptiles and the adaptations each have made to live on the prairie.
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Flight of the Painted Ladies
Students explore the life cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly. They set up cameras near a butterfly culture. They create an iPhoto photo book to document and journal their observations of the metamorphosis. Students produce a narrated...
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Habitats
Students examine how different living things interact with their environment. As a class, they discuss the characteristics of a habitat and write the list on the board. In groups, they focus on one habitat and create a mural of the...
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Preserving Buds and Blooms
Learners learn how to preserve flower buds and blooms. In this gardening lesson, students explore the methods of air drying, using drying agents, and pressing plants to preserve them.
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Worms, Nature's Recyclers!
Young scholars study what worms need to survive in different environments. They study how worm composting improves soil and reduce waste. They discuss composting techniques and present a puppet show about a worm's life.
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Creating a Pollinator Garden
Students build a pollination garden. In this pollination instructional activity, students read directions and build a pollinator garden that will produce flowering plants for pollinator organisms to use in pollination of other plants.
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Meet the Trees!
Students investigate their school forest and make their own miniature forest. In this forest investigation lesson, students read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and make alist of reasons to have trees. Students investigate trees by...
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Hunt the Fact Monster
In this Fact Monster search engine activity, students access the Internet to find the answers to five questions with multiple choice answers.
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Classification
Second graders sort insects into groups by determining similar characteristics. They role play as Entomologists to sort insects.
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Habitat Breakdown
Fourth graders gain an understanding of how insects/organisms are impacted by factors that are essential to an organism's survival in a particular habitat. They see how lacking just one element of a habitat can affect an organisms chance...
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Meadows Observations
Students investigate and examine the different living things they find in a meadow. Students record the different colors that are present and create a graph, identify and label parts of a plant, use a magnifying lens to examine all ...
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Crazy Critters
Eighth graders visit a local park to collect insects. They record the habitats, identify the insect and write a report including the kingdom, phylum, class, and order.