Investigating Plant Life in Our Nature Center

Holly Hansen, Eden Valley-Watkins Elementary School, Eden Valley MN
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Summary

In this Nature Center activity, students will apply knowledge from our classifying living things unit. They will compare what they already know about leaves to actual leaf samples. After collecting 5 leaves and keeping them in a journal, they will use a dichotomous key to correctly identify trees in our nature center.

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Learning Goals

Goals:
1. The students will use critical thinking to synthesize information from text with our nature lab.
2. The students will use observation techniques to correctly illustrate 5 different types of leaf samples.
3. The students will use questioning to follow a dichotomous key.
4. The students will compare their hypothesis to their conclusions about classification of leaves.

Vocabulary:
-Veins
-Opposite branching
-Alternate branches
-Parallel
-Netted

Key concepts:

-Trees can be identified by shape, leaf vein structure, bark and branch formation.
-Trees are either deciduous or coniferous.

Context for Use

This activity is geared towards a fourth grade science class of 20 students.
This will be an outside lab supplementing text lecture on classifying trees (Classifying Living Things, Houghton Mifflin). This will take two and a half class periods in the nature center equipped with pencils, clipboards and dichotomous keys. This could be adapted to number and type of tree species found near any schoolyard.

Description and Teaching Materials

After students have read the text selection on the Plant Kingdom, I will start off with a question review. Who remembers the difference between a deciduous and coniferous tree? How can I tell if a tree has a monocot (one part seed) or is a dicot (many part seed). After a review of the concepts, I will have the students name three trees they have heard of in our area on the left side of their science journal. They will draw their interpretation of how that leaf looks. I will then ask them if anyone would be able to go out into the nature center and identify a tree properly. How do you know? What are some of the characteristics you would look at? The brainstormed list will be on the board. I will then explain in the next few class periods we will be using a scientific tool to properly identify trees. In the first step, we will need to decide if a tree is a needle or a broadleaf (discuss the differences). Then we will follow the dichotomous key to see the next choice. I will explain that there are never more than two choices, so we can navigate through quite easily. With a partner, the class will practice as I go through a demonstration of how to follow the dichotomous key correctly. I will have the students record their observations about the tree in their science journal. I will allow the students to identify five different tree species in our nature center. The next science class period, the students will consult their journals and discuss with their science group what they discovered about the trees. They will then look at the leaves they drew before examining the actual tree leaves in the nature center. They will correctly draw their leaf on the right side of their journal using a sketch key, or an actual leaf that they have gathered. In addition to the picture, the students will record two or three characteristics of the trees/leaves in their journal. They will use this journal as a resource for final assessment. I will mark five trees in the nature center with forestry flagging and letter markers. The students will be allowed to use their dichotomous keys and journals to correctly identify the species.

Teaching Notes and Tips

-Students will use predetermined and enforced nature center rules. They will have clear parameters about how to collect a leaf and which tree line to stay near. They will know how to use their pencil sketches and the benches in the nature center for observation.
In the past, the science journal was used mainly as a vocabulary review and for worksheet homework. This activity uses the journal as a reference guide.

Assessment

They will use this journal as a resource for final assessment. I will mark five trees in the nature center with forestry flagging and letter markers. The students will be allowed to use their dichotomous keys and journals to correctly identify the species.

Standards

Standards- 4b, diversity of living things

References and Resources