Plants - What Do Leaves Need to Make Food?

by Mathew Needleman
Open Court Resources.com
School:
Saturn Street Elementary School
Grade Level:
1
Students:
8 boys and 8 girls. Eight ELL students. One student receiving RSP services. Special needs students need to be able to circle appropriate words on their recording sheets rather than writing them. ELL students will benefit from being able to draw their observations rather than writing them.
Subject Area(s):
Science, Science as inquiry
Goal(s):
Through experimentation, students will learn what leaves need to make food.
Concept(s):
Plant leaves need water, sunlight, and air to make food.
Standards:
CA- CCTC: Aligned CSTP's and TPE's
• Standard : CSTP: Standard for Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning
TPE: A. Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students
CSTP Description: Teachers exhibit strong working knowledge of subject matter and student development. Teachers organize curriculum to facilitate students? understanding of the central themes, concepts, and skills in the subject area. Teachers interrelate ideas and information within and across curricular areas to extend students? understanding. Teachers use their knowledge of student development, subject matter, instructional resources and teaching strategies to make subject matter accessible to all students.
• CSTP Key Element : Organizing curriculum to support student understanding of subject matter.
 Question : use my subject matter knowledge to organize and sequence the curriculum to increase student understanding?

CA- California K-12 Academic Content Standards
• Subject : Science
• Grade : Grade One
• Area : Life Sciences
• Sub-Strand 2: Plants and animals meet their needs in different ways. As a basis for understanding this concept:
 Standard b: Students know both plants and animals need water, animals need food, and plants need light.
• Area : Investigation and Experimentation
• Sub-Strand 4: Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
 Standard a: Draw pictures that portray some features of the thing being described.
Objective(s):
Student will practice controlling variables in order to test what plant leaves need to survive with ninety percent accuracy.
Prerequisite Background Skills/Knowledge:
Students need to know what a plant's leaves are. This has been discussed in previous lessons. Students must understand that just like animals, plants need food.
Vocabulary / Language Skills:
Sunlight, air, and oxygen.

Students do have knowledge of the sun but may or may not have a concept of the sun's light itself as something that plant's need.

Students have a sense of the sky but may not have a concept of air. This is an abstract concept for students even though air is all around us. Some time should be spent on this, perhaps inflating a balloon to show air.

Conrol and variables. Explain in regards to those things we change and those which we are careful not to change.
Materials:
Six potted flowers of the same type.
Vaseline.
Classroom Management:
In order to avoid extraneous variables, flowers must be kept undisturbed in their locations. For safety, groups of students will be asked to stay together in particular locations in the room. One student in the group will be the mover who will move the plants to the experiment locations. Each student will record his own observations.
Procedure:
Open
Review the parts of a plant with students, particularly the leaves. Ask them if plants need food to live. If there is anything on the KWL chart about this then use that as a starting point. Ask students what plants need to make food. Make a list of their ideas. Students may need some help categorizing their ideas (sunlight and light are both light), however, accept all ideas as ideas.

Now that we have a list of things students think plants need to live, how can we experiment to see if these things really effect plant life?

Body
Give students some time to discuss possible experiments. Many of them will not know yet how to design an experiment. Think out loud to have students help you design experiments to test water, sun, and air on plant growth. Be prepared to test another factor as well if students suggest it. To deprive a plant of air, use Vaseline on it's leaves.

Also, if the experiment is too obvious (that is students all know that the plants without air, sun, or water will die) students may wish to test how long a plant can go without one of those before dying. Or, which is most vital to a plant's survival.

Stress that variables must remain the same for all plants except the one you are changing. The plant shut in the closet and not receiving light must still receive water.

Have the class work in groups to monitor one experiment per group.

Each group will draw pictures of what is happening to their two plants and prepare an oral report for the class.

Close
Students share their reports and factual knowledge that emerges should be recorded on the KWL chart. Reiterate what plants need to live (air, water, and sunlight).
Assessment:
Students should be able to name the three things that plants need to make food (air, water, and sunlight) with ninety percent accuracy.

Students should be able to name one feature of designing experiments.

Students will be asked for their answers individually in a teacher/student conference with their recording sheet during IWT time.
Reflection:
This lesson was successful though it was somewhat painful for students and teacher killing plants (some plants had to die in order to test what plants need to live). However, this was a learning experience in itself.

Many, though not all, students were able to tell me some of the things that plants needed to live even before conducting this experiment. For those students who did not know and for those who only knew one or two things, this lesson cemented what plants needed because students were able to actually test what would happen when plants were deprived of those needs. That's where the inquiry aspect of this lesson was quite effective.

The knowledge I wanted students to attain was attained but the most valuable part of the lesson was more the process of attaining that knowledge than the actual knowledge. Students now have a good sense of how to design experiments.