nr field days lesson plans - utah state university

Cache County Natural Resource Field Days

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PLANTS


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PLANTS STATION

Teacher/Volunteer Summary Objectives: Students will learn about and understand these four different “take home messages”

1. Biomes: There are three main Biomes in Utah‐Forest, Desert, and Riparian. 2. Elevation: Biomes are found at different elevations (forests are high, deserts are low, and

riparian can be found at any elevation 3. Precipitation: precipitation is moisture that comes from the sky in the form of rain, sleet,

or snow. Different biomes receive different amounts of precipitation. 4. Adaptations: Plants have developed different adaptations to help them survive in the

different biomes. Core Curriculum Connections: Standard 5: Students will understand the physical characteristics of Utah’s wetlands, forests, and deserts and identify common organisms for each environment. Objective 1: Describe the physical characteristics of Utah's wetlands, forests, and deserts

a. Compare the physical characteristics (e.g., precipitation, temperature, and surface terrain) of Utah's wetlands, forests, and deserts.

b. Describe Utah's wetlands (e.g., river, lake, stream, and marsh areas where water is a major feature of the environment) forests (e.g., oak, pine, aspen, juniper areas where trees are a major feature of the environment), and deserts (e.g., areas where the lack of water provided an environment where plants needing little water are a major feature of the environment).

c. Locate examples of areas that have characteristics of wetlands, forests, or deserts in Utah.

Vocabulary:

Adaptations: Adjustments made or adopted to survive in a place or habitat.

Desert: A habitat that commonly occurs at relatively low elevations that is defined by warmer temperatures and low precipitation.

Elevation: How high or low something is. It is important to note that temperatures are cooler at higher elevation as well as there is almost always more precipitation.

Forest: A habitat dominated by trees that occurs at middle to higher elevations in Utah that receives more precipitation than deserts in great enough amounts to support more vegetation than a desert.


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Habitat: The natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. Includes shelter, food, water and space.

Precipitation: Moisture that falls from the sky in the form of rain, snow or sleet.

Wetland: A habitat that occurs anywhere water collects such as swamps, rivers, streams, lakes and ponds.

BIOMES/ADAPTATION AND HABITAT SUMMARY: The purpose of this activity is teaching fourth grade students about plant adaptations to three habitats: desert, forests and wetlands. As of 2012, it met requirements put forth by the common core. It is relatively fast paced and highly interactive to keep students’ attention in a difficult teaching environment. PROCEDURE: There are three different activities in this lesson plan. Before you begin: Ask the class what types of things they think make one habitat different than another.

ACTIVITY 1: A couple very important things that make habitats different are elevation and precipitation. Choose three students to demonstrate. Have one student stand on the ground next to the picnic table, have the second student stand on top of the picnic table, and have the third student stand aside. Q: Which student is the lowest and which student is the highest? — Low and high is elevation. Tell the class that the elevation students are going to get new names. Give the student on the ground the basket that says “Desert” and the student on the table the basket that says “Forest” and introduce them to the class as Desert and Forest. Have the class say Hello to Desert and Forest. Q: Which elevation is Desert in? Which elevation is forest in? (Forests are high and deserts are low) Precipitation is moisture that comes from the sky in the form of rain, snow, or sleet. Give the third student the wetland basket; introduce the student as “Wetland”. Have the student climb to the top of the table and back down.


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Q: What elevations will wetlands occur? (Wetlands occur at any elevation, because wetlands form where water gets trapped) Place two water bottles in the Desert basket, four in the Forest basket, and three in the Wetland basket. Move one water bottle from Desert and Forest into Wetland. Q: Which habitat has the most water? Why? (Wetlands, because the water collects in or flows to the wetland areas and gets trapped) Dismiss students to sit down with their class.

ACTIVITY 2: Instruct the class to stand up. Logan canyon has forest, desert, and wetland habitats. Instruct the class to look up and around and find the different habitats and observe the different types of plants in each. Q: Where are the forests located? How many plants to do you see? Q: Where are the desert areas? What types of plants do you see? (Because of the sun exposure those slopes don’t retain much water) Q: Why are there fewer plants in the desert habitats? Why are the plants shorter? (Adaptation) Go to the riparian/wetland area and observe plants. Q: Why are there so many different types of plant in the wetland habitat? (Because of access to water)

ACTIVITY 3 Adaptation To demonstrate plant adaptation, use student volunteers to show how people adapt to different environments. Chose 2 volunteers and introduce them as best friends getting ready to go for a canyon adventure. Tell one student that they think they will be going sledding and skiing, and tell the other student that they think they are going swimming and boating. Tell the students to look in the tote and pick the items they will need to be best adapted for their adventure (Swimming gets the swimsuit or swim trunks, tank top, beach towel, and sun glasses; Sledding gets ski coat, scarf, and gloves). The “best friends” are now faced with a dilemma. Tell the class that the


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student who is dressed for swimming decides they want to sled with their friend. Have that student shiver and admit that they aren’t having any fun. Have the student who wanted to sled decide that they would like to go swimming instead. Q: Will the student dressed for sledding have very much fun trying to swim? Plants adapt to their environment in the same way. Dismiss the students to sit with the class. Then demonstrate how plans have adapted to their environments by showing them plant samples of sagebrush, juniper, Bigtooth maple, and Norway maple. Let the students make observations on the sizes and colors of the plants and their leaves. Rubber rabbit brush or sagebrush: Show the leaf sample to the class. If time allows and you have enough, you can pass out samples to the students to look at and feel. Question: Ask the students why this desert plant has such small leaves? (These adaptations reduce the amount of water the plant loses through its leaves.) Ask why the leaf is a little bit fuzzy? (The little hairs shade the leaf and cool it down.) Ask why it is grey‐green? (This color absorbs less of the sun’s heat and keep the plant cooler—you may need to ask the students why walking on blacktop is hotter than walking on Comparisons of habitat between Norway maple and Bigtooth maple: Show the students both sets of maple leaves. The Norway maple leaves are much larger and do not have as much of a waxy coating on the leaf surfaces. The Bigtooth maple leaves are smaller and have a thick, waxy coating on their leaf surfaces. Tell the students that both sets of leaves came from closely related trees. Question: Ask why the Bigtooth maple leaves are smaller and waxier and the Norway maple leaves larger and less waxy. The Bigtooth maple lives in drier areas. The waxy surface and smaller leaves are adaptations that reduce water loss in the species. Norway maple grows in wetter areas and does not need to save water as much. Larger leaves collect more sunlight and allow it to grow faster. Conifer leaves: Show the students the juniper leaves. Point out that junipers are adapted to dry areas that receive slightly more precipitation than deserts. Their leaves are usually scale‐like or sometimes needle like and are very waxy. Explain that like the Bigtooth maple that native junipers have adaptations such as having waxy leaves and not growing very tall due to living in a dry habitat.


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ACTIVITY 3‐B Ask for two more student volunteers. Have the students stand in front of the class. Tell the class that the tarp they are sitting on is magic, and they can turn their two class mates into trees by saying “Abracadabra Trees!” Have the class repeat “Abracadabra Trees” and tell the two students that they are now trees, living in the forest. Now have a third volunteer come up and tell them that they are going to try to dig up these trees and plant them in the desert. Have the third student move the Tree volunteers from one side of the picnic table to the other. Q: What do you think will happen to the trees now that they are in the desert? (They will wilt and die) Have the two tree students act like they are wilting and dying. Have the third student try to act like a plant that already lives in the desert. Q: Will this plant be short or tall? (Short) Will this plant have big leaves or small leaves? (Small) Have the student try to act‐out being a short plant with small leaves.


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The Forest Around Us By Mark Larese‐Casanova and Marni Lee

Teacher/Volunteer Summary Objectives:

1. Create a dichotomous key. 2. Correctly classify and identify a plant using the dichotomous key.

Core Curriculum Connections: Grade 4‐Standard 5: Students will understand the physical characteristics of Utah’s wetlands, forests, and deserts and identify common organisms for each environment. Objective 3: Use a simple scheme to classify Utah plants and animals.

a. Explain how scientists use classification schemes. b. Use a simple classification system to classify unfamiliar Utah plants or animals

(e.g., tree/shrub/grass, deciduous/conifers). Background: Plants can be classified into five major groups, grasses, grass‐like, forbs, shrubs and trees. Each group has common characteristics that one can observe and use to classify a single individual plant into a larger group of plant types. These groups of plants can be found in most deserts, forests and wetlands in Utah. Grasses: A group of herbaceous (green‐not woody) plants having long narrow leaves with parallel veins (veins that run the length of the leaf), leaves are attached to a main stem which has a seed head at the top. Grass‐like: Herbaceous plant similar in appearance to grasses, such as sedges and rushes. (We won’t really discuss this group in the activity). Forb: Herbaceous (green‐not woody) plant with flowers. Forbs have solid stems (not hollow like grasses) and generally have broad, net veined leaves. Their flowers are often large, colorful, and showy. Shrub: A low growing woody plant. It has multiple stems or trunks. Bushy. Less than 12 ft. tall. Tree: A tree is a tall woody plant with a single trunk or stem. Has a large crown full of leaves or needles. Can be deciduous (leaves fall off in fall) or conifer (leaves stay on year‐round, leaves are in the form of needles). If trees are pruned by wildlife or people, they can appear as shrubs.


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Forest Plant Classification

PURPOSE: Students will understand the characteristics of Utah’s forests and the process of classifying organisms using a dichotomous key. MATERIALS:

Three plastic or real fruits (apple, orange, banana)

Large laminated characteristic cards with Velcro on the back

2‐3 ft. tall wooden stakes with the other side of the Velcro attached

18 bandannas PROCEDURE: Set up: Prior to conducting this activity, set up a pyramid of 2‐3 ft. tall stakes in the ground. The stakes should have one side of a Velcro strip staples onto which the laminated cards will be attached. Set them up in the following format with one stake at the start, two in the second level, and four in the third level. Make sure that the two pairs in the second level are visually separated from each other. Keep some extra stakes handy in case you need to add a third level somewhere. Activity 1: Engage (5min)‐ Introduce the idea of how to use characteristics of classify things.

1. Show the class three different fruits (apple, orange, banana) and ask how they would describe each frit. Split the fruits into groups based on one characteristic at a time that the students choose. Explain that their descriptions are a way of classifying not just fruits, but other organisms in nature.

a. Round/not round b. Small/large c. Color


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Explore (14 min)‐ Understand the characteristics used in classifying organism, and develop a dichotomous key.

1. Explain that, while forests are mostly trees, there are other kinds of plants that grow in forests as well. Walk around the activity site and point out an example of each to the class while holding the laminated card for each

a. Trees b. Shrubs c. Forbs d. Grasses

2. As you stop at an example of each type of plant, ask the class for words that describe each

kind of plant. What characteristics would they use? Make sure the students mention at least those listed below, and recap this list at the end of the brief discussion.

a. Tall (discuss how this can be very different for each type of plant. For example, a tree can be tall, but a baby tree is very short).

b. Woody (trees and shrubs)/non‐woody (forbs and grasses). c. One stem (tree)/many stems (all other plants) d. Parallel veins (grasses)/Branching leaf veins (all other plants

3. Show the students the laminated cards with each of these characteristics, and as which

characteristic they want to start with (NOTE: Do not use “TALL” unless you absolutely need to because it is too vague. Plant height is good to discuss, but can vary for single plant types, and may best be left out of the key). Place that first characteristic’s card on the first post in the pyramid, right above or below the START HERE sign. Then, have the students choose the second characteristic, and the third, and construct the dichotomous key, including the Tree, Shrub, Forb, Grass cards at the dead ends of the key. To the right are two examples of how the dichotomous key could be set up. Remember that there are many possibilities, and you may need to decide how to set it up if the students are not focused.


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4. Have all of the students pair up. Ask for one person from each pair to come to you, lead them about 10 ft away from the rest of the group. Visually split this half of the group into four smaller groups and tell each group that they need to help their partner find a tree, a shrub, forb, or a grass. Tell them that they have to keep it a secret!

5. Blindfold the other member of each pair and have his/her partner guide him/her to their designated type of plant. The blindfolded student will observe the plant through touch only. No peeking! Make sure the blindfolded student tells their partner the characteristics of the observed plant.

6. After a couple of minutes, call the class to the START of the dichotomous key and remove blindfolds. Allow each pair of students to travel through the dichotomous key together (following the correct route through the levels) while using only the observed characteristics from the blindfolded student and see if they arrive at the correct destination!

7. Bring all students back to the start. If time allows, have the students in each pair swap roles and repeat steps 4 through 6.

Explain (1 min)‐ Explain to the students that you hope this gave them a good look at how to classify and identify organisms using dichotomous keys. If we wanted to keep making our key bigger and bigger we could classify our plants to the exact species, or kind, like lodgepole pine or sunflower. Assessment: The ability of the students to learn the process of identifying organisms using characteristics and a dichotomous key will be assessed through whether the students are able to correctly identify their plant while traveling through the dichotomous key.


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GO THIS WAYGO THIS WAY


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PARALLEL VEINS?



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nr field days lesson plans - utah state university

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