Resource Section - Table of Contents

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Science

Grade 1/Living Things
Looking for Living (and Nonliving) Things in the Garden. Students explore the garden, looking for living and non-living things.  Worksheet included. Outdoor fall or spring.

Grade 6/Ecosystems (See Foss Diversity of Life unit)

Lesson 1:
Touring the Garden Ecosystem.  Students consider living and non-living elements in the garden ecosystem.  Worksheet included.  Outdoor fall or spring.  

Lesson 2:
Who’s Eating What in the Garden.  Students reinforce their understanding of the “food web” concept by visiting the garden to look for producers, consumers, and decomposers.  Worksheet included.  Outdoor spring or fall.

Extension:
Students explore the ecosystem of the compost bin. For classes that would like to collect leftovers at lunch to “feed the worms” in the bin, a recording sheet is included.

Grade 7/Biodiversity (NSRC/STC unit)

Investigation 5:
“Seeds of Life,” part 1. Students dissect peas to observe and describe the first developmental stages of a plant.  Indoor, with outdoor option (in spring) of observing peas growing in the garden.  Worksheet for outdoor observations included.

Extensions (see Foss, pg. 171):
Students explore the schoolyard garden to find examples of monocots and dicots, including peas, beans, cucumbers, sunflowers, tomatoes (dicots) and corn, wheat, other grasses, onions (monocots).  Outdoor fall or spring.

Students collect grasses and broadleaf plants to compare differences in root systems as well as differences in aboveground plant parts.  (See Foss, “Pull a few weeds.”)  Outdoor fall or spring.

Investigation 7:
“Plant Reproduction,” part 1.  Using examples in the schoolyard garden, students learn about sexual and asexual reproduction in plants.  Worksheet included.

Extension:
Students review the concept of pollination with a visit to the schoolyard garden, ideally the Pollinators Garden section.  Worksheet included.  Outdoor spring or fall.

Students visit the garden to look for “photosynthates,” products of the photosynthetic process.  Examples include the plant parts WE eat: leaves, roots, fruits, tubers, etc.  Worksheet included. Outdoor fall or spring.