Introduction

You are a team of botanists hired to help our class save their dying plants. There are four different plants in our classroom. Each plant is not growing well. Your team will be assigned to one of those plants. It will be the job of your team to observe, research, and inform our class what they will need to do in order to save one of our poor dying plants.

Thank you!

Task

Your team will be assigned to one of the four plants. If you are team #1, then you will work on plant #1, and so forth. You will need to look at your plant and study the current health of your plant. See how it looks now. Where is it located in the classroom? Where it is at will make a difference on how much light it will get. Put your finger in the soil. See how the soil feels. Is it wet, dry, or moist? This will show how much water it has. Record your information. Then research everything you can about the plant. There may be other things to help you save your plant.

When you have learned all you can about your plant, you will need to give the class a report on what your plant looks like, what you found, and what we can do to save our plant. We are counting on you!

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Process

• Observe the plant that you are assigned to using the observation handout. This is what your plant looks like in the classroom: Team 1; Team 2; Team 3; and Team 4.
• Research information about your plant using any information you can find in the school library, or the Internet links listed below.

• Fill out what your plant will need on the observation handout.
• Make an illustration of your plant. Use your creativity. You can color it, paint it, or create a model using objects or clay. It is your choice.
• Present your report to class of what you observed about your plant at first, what you learned that it needs, and show us the illustration.

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Evaluation

Smiley face shows great work!
Straight face shows that you did some of the work.
Sad face says that you didn't complete the work.

How good of a Botanist are you?

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Conclusion

You are now a certified Botanist for our classroom. Check the scale in the evaluation section to see how well you did.

You should now know what a plant needs to keep alive. You should know how to observe a plant and see how much water and sunlight it has. You can research a plant type and see how much water and sunlight it should be getting.

Thank you for saving our classroom plants!

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Credits

Many thanks to the following sites for providing wonderful web pages as references for our webquest.

• About House-Plants.com
• Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development
• Florida Nurserymen & Growers Association
• Franklin Institute Online
• Garden Web
• KinderGarden hosted by Department of Horticultural Sciences
• NebGuide hosted by the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
• Plant Care.com
• Sierra Home Network hosts Gardening.com

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Teacher Page

• Divide class into four different teams with up to five students on each team.
• Primary students work well socially on computers, and can pull their strengths together for reading, writing, drawing, computer skills, and oral presentation.
• Have an adult with the group as they work on their research using the Internet. The links should help them stay on task, but it is easy to sidestep into off-task areas.
• Try to stay focused on water and sunlight. Advanced students can add more variables, but most will need to keep it simple.
• Allow the students to use a variety of materials to illustrate their plant. Using choosing time for this group activity can be helpful.
• Review with the class what information they need to tell about in their report. 1-What they observed at first. 2- What their plant needs (they learned this from research). 3- Their plant illustration.
• Have each team pick who is presenting what ahead of time.
• You can use your own real plants in the classroom if you prefer.
• More webquests that have to do with plants and soil are found at this site called the Great Plant Escape.
• Information on science standards.

Any suggestions or good ideas for me: [email protected]

Thank you for joining our Botany WebQuest

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