6-8

Leaf Shapes of Plants in Pollinator Garden

Implement this lesson:

This lesson needs to be conducted partly outside, so make sure to choose a nice weather day.

Learning Objective:

Students will learn common leaf shapes and how they are advantageous to their plant’s environment.

 

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

6.11(A) research and describe why resource management is important in reducing global energy poverty, malnutrition, and air and water pollution

6.11(B) explain how conservation, increased efficiency, and technology can help manage air, water, soil, and energy resources

6.12(A)* investigate how organisms and populations in an ecosystem depend on and may compete for biotic factors such as food and abiotic factors such as availability of light and water, range of temperatures, or soil composition

6.12(B) describe and give examples of predatory, competitive, and symbiotic relationships between organisms, including mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism 

6.12(C) describe the hierarchical organization of organism, population, and community within an ecosystem

6.13(A) describe the historical development of cell theory and explain how organisms are composed of one or more cells, which come from pre‐existing cells and are the basic unit of structure and function

6.13(B) identify and compare the basic characteristics of organisms, including prokaryotic and eukaryotic, unicellular and multicellular, and autotrophic and heterotrophic 6.13(C) describe how variations within a population can be an advantage or disadvantage to the survival of a population as environments change

7.10(A)* describe the evidence that supports that Earth has changed over time, including fossil evidence, plate tectonics, and superposition 7.10(B)* describe how plate tectonics causes ocean basin formation, earthquakes, mountain building, and volcanic eruptions, including super volcanoes and hot spots 

7.11(A)* analyze the beneficial and harmful influences of human activity on groundwater and surface water in a watershed 

7.11(B)* describe human dependence and influence on ocean systems and explain how human activities impact these systems

7.12(A)* diagram the flow of energy within trophic levels and describe how the available energy decreases in successive trophic levels in energy pyramids

7.13(A)* identify and model the main functions of the systems of the human organism, including the circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, digestive, urinary, reproductive, integumentary, nervous, immune, and endocrine systems 

7.13(C)* compare the results of asexual and sexual reproduction of plants and animals in relation to the diversity of offspring and the changes in the population over time 

7.13(D)*describe and give examples of how natural and artificial selection change the occurrence of traits in a population over generations

7.14(A) describe the taxonomic system that categorizes organisms based on similarities and differences shared among groups

8.10(A) describe how energy from the Sun, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact and influence weather

8.10(B) identify global patterns of atmospheric movement and how they influence local weather 

8.10(C) describe the interactions between ocean currents and air masses that produce tropical cyclones, including typhoons and hurricanes

8.12(B) describe how primary and secondary ecological succession affect populations and species diversity after ecosystems are disrupted by natural events or human activity

8.12(C) describe how biodiversity contributes to the stability and sustainability of an ecosystem and the health of the organisms within the ecosystem

8.13(A) identify the function of the cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus, ribosomes, cytoplasm, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and vacuoles in plant or animal cells 8.13(C) describe how variations of traits within a population lead to structural, behavioral, and physiological adaptations that influence the likelihood of survival and reproductive success of a species over generations

8.13(B) describe the function of genes within chromosomes in determining inherited traits of offspring

Possible Books:

  • Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson
  • Can you Hear the Plants Speak? by Julia Wasson
  • The World’s Best Class Plant by Liz Garton
  • A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston

Materials Needed:

  • Nature Walk
  • Journal card
  • Pencil
  • Colored pencils
  • Leaf Characteristics Graphic folder

Lesson Plan:

Advanced Prep:

  • Create enough LEAF CHARACTERISTICS graphic folder for each student.
  • Teacher needs to walk around the garden 1-2 prior to locate the various shapes of leaves to ensure students will have success locating 4 different shapes.

Engage:

  • Utilizing a LEAF CHARACTERISTICS teacher made graphic folder, students will locate and observe 4 different types of leaves.
  • Students will record their observations using a NATURE WALK JOURNAL card.
  • Students will label the 4 different types of leaves they are recording.
  • Their observations recordings will include words, pictures and numbers.
  • Students will record the metadata – date, location, time, temperature, and outdoor sky observations.
  • Students will be given prompts to record onto the NATURE WALK card: I notice…. I wonder…. It reminds me of…. They will reflect on these prompts while making their observations on each leaf.

Explain:

  • Teacher explains different plant leaf shapes and their role in plant adaptations.

Elaborate:

  • The following day, students will use plant identification books to locate the common name of their plant as well as the scientific name.

Evaluate:

  • Students should have recorded the metadata onto their card.
  • Each leaf illustrated will be correctly  labeled.
  • Their pictures should take up their whole card.
  • They should have words, pictures and numbers recorded.

Lesson by: Ada Anderson