Virginia Department of Education
Weather Patterns and Seasonal Changes
Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a lesson highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...
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...
CK-12 Foundation
Seasonal Changes in Plants: Leaf Pigment
Leaves fall off the tree in the autumn, but why do they change colors? The interactive covers the role of chlorophyll and photosynthesis. It also explains both carotenoids and anthocyanins.
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...
Curated OER
Seasoning the School Year
Students 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
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...
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
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
Terrestrial Ecosystem Response to Climate Change
An extensive investigation of the Earth's climate changes awaits your environmental science classes. This top-notch presentation begins by looking at the history of Earth's climate and then predicts the impact on each major terrestrial...
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...
Wild BC
Maple Trees and Marmots
Kinesthetic activities simulate animal activity as the seasons progress in a lesson that introduces climate change to primary pupils. The kids role-play maple trees collecting what they need to survive, but as each year comes around, the...
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...
Curriculum Corner
Coniferous and Deciduous Trees
What are the differences between coniferous and deciduous trees? Supplement your tree lessons with a set of activities that has learners describing, naming, comparing, and reading about deciduous and coniferous trees. The activities are...
American Museum of Natural History
What do you Know About Climate Change?
Test the class's knowledge of the key components of climate change. A 10-question online quiz asks learners about weather, climate, greenhouse gases, and several other concepts related to climate change. Interactive and easy for...
Curated OER
Seasons of Trees
Students examine how trees change over time. In this forestry instructional activity, 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...
Curated OER
Apples and Seasons
Students 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. Students also...
Curated OER
Spring is Here
Students analyze changes between winter and spring. In this seasonal changes instructional activity, students read the story "Spring is Here." They record changes between winter and spring on a large chart paper. Students compare and...
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.
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...
Curated OER
Life Cycle of Trees
Turn your students 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 learns...
Curated OER
Charting the Changes in Our School Forest
Fourth graders investigate the ecosystem and how forests are disappearing. In this environmental protection lesson, 4th graders analyze the changes in their school for 2 weeks. Students practice identifying trees, birds, and foliage...
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
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
Time and Seasons
Here is an engaging crossword puzzle which focuses on time and the seasons of the year. Learners determine the answers to 17 clues using words that are associated with time and seasons. They complete sentences about months, holidays,...