Lesson:  Do you have a green thumb?

Date:  September 7, 2006

Teacher:  Kelley Haney

Time:  45 minutes to be completed over the course of the semester with periodic check-ins

NCSCofS

Competency Goal 1: The learner will conduct investigations and build an understanding of plant growth and adaptations.

1.01 Observe and measure how the quantities and qualities of nutrients, light, and water in the environment affect plant growth.

1.06 Observe, describe and record properties of germinating seeds.

Objectives

• Students will make observations of plant growth over time.
• Students will form a hypothesis about what will make their plant grow and design an experiment to test their hypothesis
• Students will conduct a scientific experiment with controls on variables.
• Students will plant seeds and watch them grow.
• Students will measure specific plant growth.
• Students will gather and record data on plan growth.
• Students will interpret data on plant growth.
• Students will apply and generalize data to other kinds of plants.

Materials

• Milk cartons or paper cups with holes in the bottom for drainage (one/child).
• Seeds - mung beans (corn, lima bean, green peas or radish seeds may be substituted).
• Soak the seeds to germinate them more rapidly.
• Rulers.
• Trays or plastic lids (on which to set the flower pots).
• Science Journals

Procedure

• Ask students what they think that plants need to have to grow in the environment.

• On Chart paper, brainstorm with students what plants might need to be healthy.

• Go over the list when suggestions stop not during the suggestion time.

Part 1

• Discuss what plants need to grow? How much water, soil, and sunlight do plants need for healthy growth?

• Ask students to predict what might happen if a plant gets too much or not enough water, soil, or sunlight, put a plastic bag or plastic film over it, use coke instead of water?

• Discuss ways to test the variables that might affect plant growth. Discuss the need to control variables in a scientific experiment in order to measure the effect of other variables on the outcome. Talk about keeping some things constant while changing or varying others.

• Each student will choose a variable to test for in their plant growth experiment: water, light, or soil.

• Each student should outline their experiment in their Science Journal and list the controlled variables and the one variable they will be testing for (i.e., if a group is testing for light, they would control water and soil). Have students write these in their journals.
• Light: vary the location of the pot with respect to a window or light source.
• Soil: vary the types of soil used.
• Water: vary the amount of water.

• Have students label each pot A, B, etc. and in their journal tell which in the experimental plant and which the control plant is and tell what each plant is getting. 

• Remind students that they need to vary the amount of water, light or type of soil in each container. Once the amount has been established, it must remain constant for the rest of the experiment.

•   Remind students that they need to vary the amount of water, light or type.  For example, if they are testing water, and A is the control plant, it receives 60 ml of water/once every day plant B might receive 20 ml/once a day and plant C 100 ml/once a day, and so on.

Part 2 (Approximately 1 week after seeds planted)

• Instruct students to measure and record the height of each plant each day. Be sure students note the appearance of the leaves, size of stem, color, etc. Compare these to the control plant and record all data in their Science Journals.

• Tell students to keep written records of what is happening with their plants.

Assessment

• Anecdotal records of student participation - checklist
• Students will be marked against a checklist for being on task, task completed, directions being followed, records are being kept, can explain what they are testing and why when asked, sticking with their experimental conditions, etc.

• Students will keep and maintain a journal through this unit that will be checked periodically and graded at the end of the unit.

Differentiation

• Students unable to complete the project in writing will be encouraged to talk about what is happening with their plants once a week with a peer tutor.  

• English Second Language:  Directions can be explained by the teacher on an assistant, but the best case scenario would be explanation by a partner.  Any vocabulary will be explained one-on-one if needed.  Student will be allowed to draw pictures of his plants to be assessed instead of writing daily observations.  

• Gifted Students: Student will write about an extension experiment that she would perform if she were to continue this experiment or what she would do differently and why.  This requires higher level thinking.    

Reflections:

            The lesson that I taught today went really well.  I think that there were some things that I could have done to have made the lesson flow more smoothly and reduce the workload on me.  By dividing the students up according to the experiment they were going to do and having the materials set up in stations, the students would have less confused about where to go and the workload and frustration on my part would have been greatly reduced.  I also think that there was some confusion on behalf of the students.  There are some steps that I could have taken to have prevented this.  I could have asked the students to have repeated the directions back to me.  I could have asked another student to have cleared up any misconceptions or misunderstandings in the directions that that students made.  I have found that in the past students can explain things to each other better than the teacher can.  I think that in this lesson, this would have worked great.  If I were to teach this lesson again, these are things that I would defiantly have done.  A lesson plan is good, but there are other things that have to be taken into consideration.  Classroom procedures that play a big part in classroom management play just a big of a part in planning as the content planning.  This was defiantly a refresher in this through this lesson.  As usual I am being hard on myself, but I am having to realize that this was an experiment for me because I to was experimenting and therefore learning.  Next time, I will know better. 

 
See one plant, now see two

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