Science Lesson Plan for STEM 434/534

Lesson Overview
Lesson Author: Alyana Lara Date: 12-7-18

Grade Level: 4th Grade

Subject/Topic Area: Plantastic!

Time Allotment for overall lesson: 6 sessions over a span of 2 weeks

 Initial Session: 45 minutes-1 Hour
 Sessions 2-5: 30 minutes
 Last Session: 1-2 Hours

Concept Statement –
 Short Description:
In this lesson, students are exploring the various parts and functions of typical, green plants. In
addition to this, the students are going to learn about the different types of nutrients that plants
provide and why they are important to have. The main experiment in this lesson involves
growing their own bean seeds in order to determine what the best environment is for them to
grow in. This experiment will address change, constancy, and measurement. The final part of this
lesson will involve a performance-based assessment that will measure the students understanding
of the concepts covered in this lesson.

 Methods of Teaching and Student Activities:

There are many different approaches that students will be able to take when it comes to this
lesson as there is a lot of encouragement in exploration of their concepts. There is an inquiry-
based discussion that will examine their prior knowledge and what questions they may have,
different simulations that students can access online related to the topic of the lesson, and many
tools that the students will have to use in order to complete the hands-on experiment.

 Rationale:
Plants contribute to many industries in America outside of food and agriculture. They function as
producers of oxygen (which most living things need to survive), they are used for important
products in many different industries (ethanol from corn, latex/rubber from rubber trees, etc.),
and they are a major component of the environment (helps reduce erosion and runoff, provides
home to many other animals, etc.). Plants are invaluable resources that the world needs in order
for it to function properly. Understanding these concepts will help students understand that basic
scientific concepts in the classroom are important in the real-world.

Safety Concerns and Interventions-

Safety Concerns:
 Use of fertilizers from common household goods monitored/distributed directly by the teacher
(ABSOLUTELY UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL THE STUDENTS HANDLE
FERTILIZER AND SOIL)
 ?
 ?
Applicable Safety Rules:
 Follow all general safety rules listed in teacher’s science safety poster
 Always wear safety goggles and gloves when told to do so!
 Wear closed toe shoes and tie back long hair
Appropriate Precautions and Student Behaviors:
 Students should be aware that they cannot bring in their own seeds/soil from home!
 Check that all workspaces are cleared to be worked on during lesson
 Mishandling any equipment will result in no participation for the experiment
Accident Plan and Potential Allergies:
 No food or drink will be allowed in the room during the experiment
 If there are latex allergies, plastic gloves can be utilized in place of it
 Potential pollen allergies
 Standards

State Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:

Science:
4.4 The student will investigate and understand basic plant anatomy and life processes. Key concepts
include
a) the structures of typical plants and the function of each structure;
b) processes and structures involved with plant reproduction;

Health:
4.1 The student will explain how nutrition and other health-enhancing behaviors affect personal health
and academic achievement.
f) Analyze the impact of nutrients on growth and development.

Focus
 For many typical green plants, there are anatomical structures that perform certain basic
functions. For example, roots anchor the plants and take water and nutrients from the soil. Plant
stems provide support and allow movement of water and nutrients.

 Plants can be divided into two general groups: those that produce seeds and those that produce
spores.

 Many seed-producing plants have roots, stems, leaves, and flowers.

 The embryo within the seed begins as a single cell, the zygote. The basic organs of the plant body
can be found in the embryo. In some seeds the embryonic leaves are quite large, filling most of the
volume of the seed. The embryonic leaves are a major source of stored food for the embryo. Beans
are an example of plants with large embryonic leaves. In many other plants the embryonic leaves are
relatively small, and the embryo is nourished by a tissue called endosperm.

 Pollination is part of the reproductive process of flowering plants. Pollination is the process by which
pollen is transferred from the stamens to the stigma.

 The stamen and pistil are reproductive parts of the flower. The sepals are the small leaves that form
the housing of the developing flower.

Essential Questions
 How do plants contribute to our environment for both living and nonliving things?
 Why does the type of environment matter to a plant’s health?
 To what extent do you think heat, light, sound and nutrients affect plants?
 In what ways can seeds travel and grow?
 What convinced you that plants came from seeds?
 How might we prove that flowers are part of the reproduction process of plants?

Vocabulary
 Seed: Found inside of certain plants; made of a seed coat with an embryo inside
o Embryo: Part of a seed, includes the necessary precursor parts of a plant
o Spore: Cells that fungi come from; doesn’t require pollination to be produced
  Root: Anchor the plants and take water and nutrients from the soil
 Stem: Provide support and allow movement of water and nutrients
 Leaf: Engages in photosynthesis and produces food for the plant
 Flower: Reproductive organ of a flowering plant
o Petals: Attract insects or other animals
o Stamen: Produce pollen
o Pistil: Hold egg cells that will eventually become seeds
o Sepal: Small leaves that houses a developing flower
o Pollination: Part of the reproductive process of flowering plants. The process by which
pollen is transferred from the stamens to the stigma
 Nutrients: A chemical (or food) needed for plants to live and grow

Lesson Plan Objectives (Instructional Outcomes)

In order to meet this standard, it is expected that students will
 analyze a common plant: identify the roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, and explain the function
of each.
 create a model/diagram illustrating the parts of a flower and its reproductive processes. Explain
the model/diagram using the following terminology: pollination, stamen, stigma, pistil, sepal,
embryo, spore, seed.

Techniques and Activities:

Engage: First 45 Minute Session. Introduction (10-15 Minutes, Teacher Directed)

 Before watching the video, an introduction on plants will be initiated. Inquiry-based discussions
will start the introduction and is facilitated by the teacher. A couple of questions that the teacher
can ask include the essential questions and these questions:
o Where have you seen plants other than outside in a forest or wooded area?
o What makes plants so special?
o Do you think that there is a big reason for the importance of plants?
o How are plants different from each other? Do they have different shaped leaves? Grow
really tall or really small? Produce flowers or don’t produce flowers?
 To introduce the lesson, the class will be watching the teacher’s video on plants and their parts.
This is meant to act as a lesson “primer” and give them a quick look of what plants are made up
of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQKuMV6arR4
 After watching this activity, the students are going to do a 3-2-1 countdown activity where they
tell three things that they liked about the video, two things that were new to them, and one thing
that they were still confused about. They will share this information in small groups or pairings
with their classmates and will share with the whole group once they have talked about it in their
small groups or pairings.
 Once the 3-2-1 countdown is finished, the students are going to be put into 3-4 different groups
(depending on class size). Each group will have a different area assigned to them:
o Next to the window
o By the classroom door
o Inside a bookcase or cabinet
o Outside in the hallway next to the classroom (extra group)
These places will be used for the experiment coming up later in the lesson.
 The teacher is going to introduce the experiment that the students are going to participate in by
presenting them with the question, “Where is the best place for a plant to grow?” They will also
come up with their own hypotheses/predictions in their observation journals in the form of
“If…then…” statements. The example that a teacher can provide for the hypotheses/predictions
 is “If the plants don’t get enough sunlight, then they won’t grow very tall.” Once students have
written in their journals, they can begin the “Explore” phase of the lesson.

Explore: First 45 Minute Session, Plant Experiment (30-45 Minutes, Teacher Directed)
 This part of the lesson is where students get to directly interact with the materials in the
experiment. Before starting anything, the teacher is going to use the help of the day’s student
helper to help model what the students will be doing to start the experiment. Below is a list of
directions that will be typed and printed out for each student to refer to that the teacher will use
during the modeling process:
o Prepare your materials! You will need:
 Soil and 4 cotton balls
 4 bean seeds
 A pair of clear, plastic gloves for yourself
 1 clear, plastic glove for your seeds
o Make sure you have long hair tied back and your plastic gloves on your hands!
o Write your name on a piece of masking tape and tape it onto your seed glove.
o Place the cotton balls inside each finger (except for the thumb) of the plastic glove meant
for your seeds.
o Add one bean seed to each finger (except for the thumb) and place it in front (not on top
of) the cotton ball, then put a little bit of soil on top of each cotton ball.
o When you finish adding the soil, take one of the plastic pipettes and fill it to the top with
water. Water all of the seeds with one full pipette of water each.
o Tape the glove in the designated space that your teacher assigned to you.
 Once the teacher and student helper of the day finish modeling what the rest of the class will be
doing, the students will begin their own plant experiment.
 Due to the use of soil, the students will be doing this activity in an outdoor area within the
school’s grounds. The soil is store bought potting soil, and under no circumstances should any of
the dirt in the school’s area be used for the experiment.
 When all of the students have filled their gloves, they will be tasked with placing their plants in
their assigned places. They will use a couple of pieces of tape to hang their plant gloves upright.

Explore Continued: Sessions 2-5, Plant Observations (30 Minutes, Student Centered)
 During this time, observations will be made on the student’s plants. The students also need to
water the plants every time they go up to observe their assigned plants.
 Each student will go to their plants and write down or draw any observations that they see in
their journal. In the journal students should have:
o The day of the observation
o A drawing of what the plant looks like
o Any notable features of the plant that may have grown
o An explanation of what has changed since the previous session
o Measure the plant from the lowest root to the highest it has grown and write down how
tall the plant is.
 When each part of the plant starts showing up in any of the students’ gloves, this is when the
teacher can begin to explain that specific part of the plant to the whole class and why it’s
important. This can act as a very brief inquiry discussion.
 In the fifth and final session, the students are still going to complete a journal for this session
with a few added questions that the student needs to answer:
 o What changed from the beginning of the experiment to now?
o Look at your peers’ plants in other groups outside of yours. What is different between
theirs and yours in terms of color, height, etc.?
o Draw what your plant looks like right now and draw what another group’s plant looks
like too. Make sure to label which one is yours and which one is another group’s plant!

Explain: Final Session, Inquiry Based Discussion (10-15 Minutes, Combination)

 In this session, an inquiry-based discussion about what they have found out about their plants and
the environments that they are in will be in place. Students can and are encouraged to use their
journals as examples of what they have found and are more than welcome to share with the class
the information that they found. Students can share:
o The parts of a plant that they found (roots, stem, leaves, etc.
o The height of their plants at the end of the activity
o Interesting thoughts and observations that they made/had (color, height, etc.)
 After this discussion, a general consensus can be made to the class about what they think the best
environment is for their plants to grow in.

Elaborate: Final Session, Nutrients (10-15 minutes, Teacher Directed)

 Plants, just like most living things, need nutrients to survive and be healthy. The teacher is going
to show the students an example of a plant that they (the teacher) brought from home that uses
various nutrients. Students are going to answer a couple questions that the teacher asks:
o What do you think nutrients are?
o What do you think fertilizers are?
o How do you think plants take in nutrients compared to how humans take in nutrients?
o What do you think makes up nutrients?
 The teacher can also bring the common household supplies that people use for fertilizer, such as
Borax and Epsom salt. The students aren’t going to have any direct contact with the fertilizers!
 It’s important to emphasize that just like humans and how they have to eat their vegetables to get
their needed vitamins and minerals, plants also need to have nutrients so that they can grow to be
strong and healthy.
 The fertilizers in this section of the lesson will eventually be used in the lesson closure of this
activity with sunflower seeds.

Evaluate: Final Session, GRASPS PBA (1-1 ½ Hours, Student-Centered)

Stage 2 Assessment Evidence: GRASPS Template

GOAL
 Your task is to label each part of a typical, flowering plant and to describe the steps of
growing a plant.

ROLE
 You are a botanist (a scientist who studies plants) who is going to visit a school science fair
and show students the different parts of a plant and provide instructions on how to grow their
own at home.
 AUDIENCE
 The target audience are the students, teachers, and the principal at the school.

SITUATION
 The context you find yourself in is that a school principal has asked you (a botanist) to come
in to talk to students during their annual school science fair. In order to help you create
discussion with the students at the fair, you are going to make a brochure that briefly describes
each plant part and how the students can grow their own plants at home with the sunflower
seeds that you brought in to share. These brochures will be passed out to the students and
some of the teachers who are interested in growing sunflowers at home.

PRODUCT/PERFORMANCE AND PURPOSE:

 You will create a brochure that labels and briefly describes parts of plants and give directions
on how to grow a plant
o in order to show the students’ the important features and functions of plant parts, as
well as show them that they can grow their own plants at home.

STANDARDS AND CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS:

 Your product must meet the following standards:
o Have a picture of a typical, flowering plant labeled accurately
o Each part of the plant is briefly and accurately described (bullet point descriptions)
o Easy, simple directions for growing a plant are listed in order
o Cover of brochure is colorful with an appropriate title and the name of the student
who created it

Lesson Closure:
To close the lesson, the students are going to grow their own sunflower seeds as noted in their GRASPS
activity. They will start the activity the same way that they started the experiment in the beginning of the
lesson with the use of the plastic gloves, cotton balls, soil, water, and seeds. The teacher is going to
provide and disperse the small doses of fertilizer themselves into each student’s glove so that the
students won’t have direct contact. Once the seeds and the gloves have been set up, the students can tape
their gloves to the area that the students found was best suited for seeds to grow when they were
conducting their experiment. After the plants have sprouted, the students are going to be able to take
their plants home with them.

Assessment/Evaluation:
In the “Evaluate” section of “Techniques and Activities,” students are taking the role of a botanist, which
is a scientist that studies plants. This is a summative assessment of science SOL 4.4, clauses A and B.
The students are required to be able to make a brochure that successfully labels each part of a flowering
plant and provides short and simple instructions on growing a plant. Although this assessment is mostly
meant to check their understanding of the SOL, it is also meant to check their understanding for the
experiment that they did in class by providing instructions on plant care.

Student Products:
There will be a total of three student products from this lesson:

 Bean Seedlings: The bean seedlings play the most important part of the experiment in this lesson,
as the seeds are being observed until they become seedlings. At the completion of the
experiment, each student will have a chance to start growing their own sunflowers in the
classroom, and once the experiment is over, they can take them home to continue growing.
 Plant Brochure: This plant brochure is a result of the performance-based assessment in the
“Evaluate” section of “Techniques and Activities.” Students are taking the role of a botanist that
is visiting a school science fair with a brochure that shows students how to grow plants at home.
 Sunflower Seedlings: All of the students will have a chance to be able to grow their own
sunflower seeds in the most suitable environment that they found from their experiment, that way
 everyone is on the same leveled plane for growing the seeds compared to what they did for the
experiment. The students will be able to take the plants home with them once they have sprouted.

Supplemental Activities:
Extensions:

 Students may make a table or bar graph showing their data (IV=Days elapsed; DV=Plant height)
and insert it into their observation journals.
 Explore (research) different types of nutrients and fertilizers that the students can use on their
sunflower seeds when they take them home.
 Go to this link: http://interactivesites.weebly.com/plants.html where students can play various
interactive plant games that can extend their knowledge of plants into specific functions, and also
learn about more nutrients that are found in soil. Any of the interactive games on this page can be
used for these extensions.

Remediations:

 Online plant simulations are available for students to use to review the process and needs of a
plant’s growth.
 Go to this link: https://www.brainpop.com/science/diversityoflife/seedplants/ for a BrainPOP
video and interactive simulation that can thoroughly explain how a plant grows along with the
parts of the plant.
 If students are having a hard time understanding the concept because of the timing, this video
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w77zPAtVTuI) can be very helpful as it is a time lapse of
the same type of plant used in the activity.

Adaptations and Accommodations for Special Learners:

Learners with Disabilities:

 Provide computer simulations if hands-on activities prove difficult and limited

 Give explicit verbal instructions that are also written on paper that are in small steps
 Use as many accessibility features as possible when utilizing technology (i.e., changing cursor
sizes, adjusting zoom functions and brightness, providing headphones, etc.)

ESL Students:

 Provide simple translations of the various parts of the plant

 Model extensively during the lesson and experiment and partner with the teacher during the
modeling process
 Utilize the help of the ESL specialist and constantly use technology to help facilitate learning (for
example, Google Chrome has an excellent accessibility feature that can help translate web pages)

Gifted Learners:

 Allow these students to experiment with different materials and adjust some of the variables (use
of fertilizers here is highly recommended with teacher guidance/facilitation)
 Students can also do the activities that are listed under “Extensions” in the “Supplemental
Activities” section of this lesson plan.
Differentiated Instruction:
This activity is very hands on and uses several different methods to reach every learner in the classroom.
Different resources can be utilized, especially online resources such as the interactive games, BrainPOP,
and YouTube videos on plants. Also, real-life examples and scenarios will be used throughout the lesson
and the activities (such as the teacher bringing in their own plant and fertilizers from home to show to
the class). Their performance-based assessment is also an example of an authentic assessment that
connects to the real-world. Students will also be working in groups with their classmates to allow for the
spread of different perspectives.
Resources

Materials and resources needed for this lesson

 For experiment:
o Soil
o Bean Seeds
o Plastic Gloves
o Tape
o Pen
o Ruler
o Plastic Pipette
o Cotton Balls
 Pencils, Colored Pencils
 Observation Journals
 For Brochure:
o Computer paper
o Colored Pencils
o Various pictures of plants (can be Googled online)

Technology resources needed for this lesson

 Laptop, Desktop, or iPad
 Smart Board or Promethean Board

Web Addresses needed for this lesson:

 http://interactivesites.weebly.com/plants.html
 https://www.brainpop.com/science/diversityoflife/seedplants/
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w77zPAtVTuI
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQKuMV6arR4

Robyn’s Peer Review:

Overall, this is great lesson plan from what I have read. The components that you have done so far captures the
student’s curiosity on the topic. You are off to a great start. I have reviewed your lesson plans before and they
always come out great!

DON’T FORGET!!
 Safety Concerns
 Concept Statement
 Put links by the activities if you are using an outside source
 Don’t forget to put the definitions for vocabulary words (first three)

Marena’s Peer Review:

-add links to online sources for extend and remedial purposes; Gizmo is a great online simulation to use.
https://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspDetail&ResourceID=635
- Health sol stated but no evidence of implementation.
- Maybe state possible student responses when you ask questions in the lesson so that a teacher
is aware of what students should/may say.
- Maybe state possible teacher explanations about different parts of plants and plant growth so
that a teacher who may not be as knowledgeable knows what to say.
- Great adaptations and accommodations