Circle of (Plant) Life

The plants around us provide a perfect hands-on biology classroom for students of all ages.  From planting that first bean in a paper cup to conducting more involved and complicated high-school biology experiments, studying plants can be an effective, concrete, fun, and low-cost way for students to explore the living world. 

Kids start learning about photosynthesis from a very young age.  As toddlers begin exploring and playing outside, their observations help them form ideas about plants and how they grow.  By preschool age, many students have had the opportunity to plant seeds and water them to see them sprout.  They may find out that plants will die when we forget to water them or when they don’t get enough sun.  As students’ experiences with plants increase, their perceptions of the way plants grow may change.  Often, by the time photosynthesis is formally introduced in the older grades, students already have some misconceptions about the process.  If we can include photosynthesis in science lessons from kindergarten on, learning the details of the process and understanding the chemical reactions involved will be much easier and more rewarding in middle school and high school.

Since plants are living things, it’s natural for students to compare the functions of the plants to human functions.  Do plants eat, drink, and breathe like us?  How are they different?  How are they the same?

One common misconception going into the study of photosynthesis is that that plants get food from outside sources such as water and soil, much like humans get their food from outside.  All living things need to eat in order to have enough energy to stay alive.  Plants are the hard-working producers of the world, synthesizing their own food using energy from the sun.  They use carbon dioxide and water with the sunlight to make their own food internally.

FT Exploring has a very easy to understand introduction to photosynthesis.  This resource describes photosynthesis in a recipe format and includes diagrams that simplify the concepts.  It answers the questions of how plants eat, drink, and breathe, and shows how these functions are different for plants than for humans.  Teachers could use this introduction for a range of grades, going more in depth with the reactions for older students and sticking to the more basic facts with younger students.  The following diagram is from their site.  

In order for a plant to carry out photosynthesis, water must travel up into the plant from the roots.  This is a fun phenomenon to explore, and would work well for primary or secondary students.  You can introduce simple chromatography experiments with coffee filters and markers or allow students to place the stems of white carnations into water dyed with food coloring.   When bands of color travel out from a marker line or colored water travels to the tips of the carnation petals, students will gain a visual understanding of how water can make its way throughout a plant to take part in photosynthesis.  Take a look at one of our 2010 blog posts about fall lessons to see come neat chromatography ideas. 

Once students are on the right track with the basic concepts of photosynthesis, their learning in the later grades will be more successful.  If you have older students and are ready to go more in-depth with the topic, be sure to look at this comprehensive high school unit.  This unit includes inquiry-based problem solving, hands-on photosynthesis demonstrations using props like tennis balls and balloons, and easy-to-follow procedures.  Another experiment that could go along with that unit is Glucose Factory, where students experiment to see how much glucose is actually inside different plant parts.


~Peggy's Corner - September 16, 2011~

Plant Power

Autumn doesn’t officially start until next week, but the signs that the season is imminent are all around us. The nights have become noticeably cooler, and the days shorter. Trees are beginning to change color, and will soon begin shedding their leaves.  For many plants, the lifespan of their hardworking leaves has come to an end; they will soon color, shrivel, and finally die. In some parts of the country, many plants will remain dormant for the winter, and only gradually re-animate in the spring, when they unfurl new leaves.

Leaves are indeed the workhorses of plants. Through the process of photosynthesis, leaves absorb carbon dioxide and sunlight, and convert the sun’s rays into energy in which to make food. Water, of course, is also necessary for photosynthesis to occur, and is absorbed through the plant’s roots. Once energy is created, the plant is able to store reserves in its leaves for future use, and emits oxygen as a waste product. It’s a remarkably efficient process, and vital to the survival of nearly all living things. Animals and humans exhale carbon dioxide, which the plants take in, and in turn emit oxygen for our use. Photosynthesis occurs in some bacteria, algae, and in most plants.

Leaves are, perhaps, the original solar panels. In autumn, the process of photosynthesis slows as the amount of daylight and precipitation declines. Food production wanes, and deciduous trees and other plants will essentially shut down over the winter months until increased sunlight and rainfall in the spring gradually prompt photosynthesis to resume. Fall is a wonderful time to discuss the process by which leaves make energy, and there are lots of materials available for classroom use.  This week’s selected resources on photosynthesis are for a variety of grade levels, and some can be adapted for different ages. I’ll also be featuring several new lessons and resources on photosynthesis daily throughout the week on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so be sure to take a look.

But What IS Photosynthesis?

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-08.4180484745

Subjects: Math, Botany, Biology

Grade: 3-5

In this lesson, students will experience aural, written, reading, and hands-on instruction in learning about photosynthesis. This lesson is a product of the College of Education at Western Michigan University.

Photosynthesis, Trees, and the Greenhouse Effect

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-03.7139319487

Subjects: Geography, Botany, Ecology

Grade: 6-8

In this lesson, students will study photosynthesis and then transfer their understanding of this topic to a consideration of how trees can help reduce the negative impacts of the greenhouse effect. They will read a Web page describing the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide's role as a greenhouse gas, and the role of humans in exacerbating this effect. This lesson was produced by National Geographic Xpeditions, which offers a plethora of tools, interactive adventures, and ideas relating to geography and the world around us. In addition to lesson plans, the site offers daily global news, maps, interactive games for kids, and more. Lessons are aligned to the U.S. National Geography Standards.

Photosynthesis: Unit Plan

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-08.9596193654

Subjects: Botany, Biology, Ecology

Grade: 9-12

In this series of eight lessons, students will learn about the light reactions of photosynthesis, the physical plant characteristics and their functions, and the role of energy in the metabolic processes in plants. They will also apply their knowledge to the topics of world deforestation and global warming. This lesson was created by Dayna Wilhelm, a graduate student in Education at Virginia Tech.

~Joann's Picks - September 15, 2011~

September 11

You probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001.  On that day, history gained a new day of infamy that will be a part of American History classes from now on.  Although this piece of contemporary history is seared in their parents’ minds, it might be just another story for many students who are too young to remember the events themselves. In remembrance of the tenth anniversary of this tragedy, many teachers are planning to cover the events and the aftermath in some way.  Teachers have a chance to use this awful event to continue the learning for future generations.

Studying September 11 brings up a whole list of issues for educators.  This blog post from Teaching Tolerance is a good overview of things to think about before presenting lessons on 9/11 to your classes.  One point I thought was especially important was that we need to be careful not to scare primary students with too many graphic images and audio clips, although they are sure to be inundated with these images on television during the tenth anniversary of the attacks.  The site for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum has some excellent lesson plans and resources for teaching about the events and related topics with your class.  Their K-2 fact sheet explains the events for a young target audience.  This would make a very good introduction for elementary students who might be learning the facts of September 11 for the first time. A more detailed explanation that includes pictures and sound clips can be found in this interactive timeline.

Joann has collected and catalogued resources on the topic for the Gateway that we will feature in our columns and in our daily Facebook and Twitter posts.  Be sure to look there first as you plan activities for your classroom.  If you don’t live in New York, there is a good chance your students haven’t been to the site of the twin towers in New York City.  When you introduce the topic of September 11, it would be really nice to take your students there.  A good place to start introducing the events of September 11 to your students is a virtual field trip to the site using Google Earth.  If you search, you can find some that have already been created, or you can create one of your own.  The following animation will show you what the site looks like today and what the planned memorials look like. 

In addition to teaching the history of the events of the day, the topic provides a good context for presenting lessons on tolerance, cultural differences, disaster response, heroes, and other related topics.  A search of the Gateway for any of these topics will bring up a list of standards-aligned resources you can use. 

One major issue brought up by the study of September 11^th is students’ understanding and acceptance of Islam.  Studying the attacks might stir up feelings of prejudice in your students against Muslims or even the Middle Eastern culture.  It’s important to study this religion in a balanced way so your students can form their own opinions.  Read our blog post, Peace Through Knowledge to find some ideas and resources for incorporating the study of Islam in your classes.   Another blog post from Teaching Tolerance discusses confronting Islamaphobia, and would be a good post to read before teaching about the subject.

Whether you study the events of September 11^th from a purely historical perspective or if you decide to take a different angle and study other issues related to that day, I hope you find some good resources here and on the Gateway.  We’ll continue to share ideas all week, and we hope you do, too!

~Peggy's Corner - September 9, 2011~

9/11

This week marks the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. For me, the only day that was worse than September 11, 2001 was September 12, 2001. By then, the shock of what had happened was starting to recede, and the grim reality of the utter devastation was sinking in. Most of our K-12 students are too young to remember much, if anything, about that day, but it remains a watershed event in American history. The legacy of 9/11 is that the U.S. is a changed nation, psychologically, politically, and culturally. It’s forever changed the way that we view our personal freedoms and security. A recent study indicates that emergency response personnel – the firefighters, police officers, and EMTs who worked furiously to save others at the World Trade Center – are being diagnosed with various types of cancers from the toxic dust at an alarming rate. The tragedy of 9/11 still resonates through each of us, every day.

The Memorial at the new World Trade Center site in New York City is scheduled to open on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, on September 11, 2011. The site includes the Survivor Tree, reflecting pools, and panes of glass from one of the original twin towers. It’s a reminder that even in the face of terrorism and tragedy, life does indeed continue, and we move forward as a nation and as people.

Many students learn about the events of 9/11, and why it happened, at school. For nearly a decade, school districts throughout the nation have held annual observations or remembrances on the date, sometimes following up with related lessons, and sometimes simply allowing the students to commemorate the event in their own ways. The social, political, economic, and historical events leading up to 9/11 and its aftermath are intricate and varied, and ripe for study. Terrorism, religious and social extremism, geography, tolerance, and world history are just some of the topics that can be explored in class discussions of September 11, and these and other topics can be adapted for different age groups.

My picks this week focus on the events of 9/11 and its aftermath. The resources are for a variety of grade levels, and many can be adapted for different ages.  We’ll also be featuring several new lessons and resources on 9/11 daily throughout the week on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so be sure to take a look.

September 11 National Day of Service Lesson Plans

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-01.0805353918

Subjects: US history, Character education

Grades: K-12

These three lessons aim to teach valuable, heartfelt, and constructive lessons about the 9/11 experience, the way tragedies impact us as people, and the remarkable spirit of service that arose in response to the attacks. Students will learn about the incredible outpouring of support from people following the attacks, select causes or organizations

to support through service projects as a way to honor the victims of 9/11, and plan and execute those projects. While the lessons are aimed at the entire range of K-12 students, teachers may want to make adaptations for younger students. This lesson is a product of

911day.org, part of MyGoodDeed.org. MyGoodDeed.org is a national nonprofit organization that successfully led a seven-year effort to establish September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

Lesson MV-11: Civil Rights in the Age of Terrorism

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-01.6648623912

Subjects: US history, Civics

Grade: 7-8

In this lesson, students will define and identify some American civil rights, analyze hypothetical cases, and discuss the impact of terrorism on these rights. This lesson is a product of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education at the State of New Jersey Department of Education, which provides Holocaust and genocide education materials to the state of New Jersey and beyond.

The Post 9/11 Landscape

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-09-01.7854436879

Subjects: English Language Arts, US history

Grade: 6-12

In this podcast, teen readers will encounter page-turning suspense and hard-hitting social commentary in books exploring the political and cultural landscape of our post-9/11 world. Tune in to hear how graphic novels place the events of 9/11 in historical context, how war stories put a human face on the costs of military conflict, and how young adult novels imagine roles that teens can play in working for a better world. This lesson was produced by ReadWriteThink, which offers peer-reviewed lessons in reading and English/Language Arts.

~Joann's Picks - September 9, 2011~

Repeat After Me….

It’s always fun to do something unexpected in the classroom, and to watch the kids’ reactions. It’s especially gratifying when the event furthers a curricular goal, or makes subject matter more palatable to the students.  I remember one day in middle school where we math students weren’t particularly engaged in the material, and the teacher’s attempts to salvage the class weren’t working. She was a fine teacher, and we were normally motivated learners, but it was just one of those days where things didn’t click. She sighed, scrapped the lesson, and took out a large book of M.C. Escher drawings. While most of the students had seen some of his work before, the tessellation pictures were the ones we focused on. We marveled at the intricacy and precision of his work, and before long were discussing different types of symmetry and what types of shapes could and couldn’t be used to produce tessellations. It wasn’t the lesson the teacher had originally intended (or even wanted) to teach, but she did what gifted educators everywhere do: she took the class pulse, decided to change tactics by introducing something novel to the class, and wound up still delivering math content in a way that was memorable and valuable. 

Tessellations are neat things. They’re created when a specific shape is multiplied and repeated over and over, until it covers the entire surface of a plane without any gaps in the pattern. Tessellations are sometimes also known as “tiling,” and can occur in nature as well as being a man-made product. The repeated shapes shown on brick walls, soccer balls, honeycombs, and the sections of an orange, for instance, are all examples of tiling, or tessellations. The use of tessellations as a decorative motif has been traced to the ancient Sumerians, who some 4,000 years ago decorated the walls of temples and other buildings with elaborate repeated patterns. It’s a fine blending of mathematics and visual art – a fairly rare combination – and can be a great topic to engage students who usually don’t like math. The trick is to consistently emphasize the mathematical properties of tessellations, and how they in turn make the artistic properties possible.

Tessellations can be taught across the curriculum and to a variety of age groups. Younger students can use pattern activity blocks to emphasize patterns and symmetry while working on their problem-solving skills. Older students can calculate distance using individual tile measurements, explore the different types of symmetry on a plane, and figure out which shapes tessellate and which ones don’t. All ages can create their own tessellations, using either simple shapes like triangles and squares or more complex irregular shapes. Tessellations can be studied in the art classroom, and in science by examining symmetry in nature, such as in animals and plants.

This week I’ve highlighted three hands-on tessellation lessons with activities for a variety of ages.  Please be sure to read Peggy’s companion column where she discusses how to use these resources and others in the classroom. We’ll also be featuring several new lessons and resources on this topic each day throughout the week on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so be sure to take a look.

Exploring Tessellations

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-08-24.6118809390

Subjects: Geometry, Art

Grade: K-2

In these activities, students learn about tessellations and how to create them. They learn to tessellate with one shape, two shapes, and finally with three dimensional (3-D) shapes. This lesson was produced by the Geometry Playground at Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception located in San Francisco, California. The Exploratorium offers a host of materials for educators, including lesson plans.

Medieval Tessellations

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-08-24.0009022082

Subjects: Geometry, Art, World history

Grade: 6-8

The major focus of this lesson is to surreptitiously introduce the teaching of math concepts across the curriculum. Students will each produce a tessellation of original design that effectively uses shape, pattern/repetition and color to create a "beastie" inspired by bestiaries of the Middle Ages. This lesson is a produce of the Incredible Art Department at Princeton Online, and offers a plethora of materials for art teachers, art students, parents, homeschoolers and artists.

Let’s Tessellate

http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2008-05-01.5810723795

Grade: 9-12

This lesson is a hands-on, technology-based project that will take place in the classroom and computer lab. Students will discover which regular polygons tessellate the plane by constructing polygonal tessellations. Students will also use a spreadsheet to calculate the area and perimeter of the polygons. This lesson was produced by the Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX), an education portal that provides lesson plans, education-related podcasts, best practices, and Alabama professional development activities. Lessons are aligned to Alabama Content Standards.

~Joann's Picks - 9/1/2011~ 

Heroes

In the past couple of weeks, the word “hero” has been a huge part of the news media as 30 American soldiers were tragically killed in a recent Chinook crash in Afghanistan. The crash caused the highest number of American casualties in one day since the beginning of the conflict. As the names of the fallen were being released, friends and family remembered the soldiers as heroes. One 10-year-old boy posted a picture of his dad, a pilot of the downed helicopter, on CNN’s iReport and described him as a hero. This touching personal account of loss touched many people and caused an outpouring of comments on the site.

After reading Joann’s post on heroic journeys, I realized that these soldiers are truly heroes in every sense of the word. They embarked on the archetypal heroic journey, as described by Joseph Campbell. They left their normal lives to go and complete challenging tasks in an unfamiliar world. These 30 heroes were unable to finish the journey and return home to their normal lives, a loss that is mourned throughout the country. Heroism is not a new concept, and it is not limited to wartime. With the focus on heroism in the news right now, teachers can use these current events as in introduction to studying the plight of heroes in current and classic literature.

Whether your students find heroes in soldiers, sports icons, fictional film or literary characters, or even family members or friends, their relationship with these personal heroes can help them understand how a hero’s character is built. Stories of heroes and the classic heroic journey transcend cultural lines, and can be found in literature throughout the ages. There are some great resources available on The Gateway to 21st Century Skills to help your students integrate their study of heroes into many different subject areas. The resources use all different types of media to bring heroism alive for your students.

If current events won’t hook your students into the study of heroes, the heroism in some of their favorite movies might. The Star Wars movies are good examples of a hero’s journey, and many of your students have probably seen the films.  This lesson from the PBS American Masters uses Star Wars to explore the characteristics of a hero and study the concepts of good versus evil.  I like how this resource includes a project and allows students to be creative through artwork.

I also liked one high school unit from Read, Write, Think because the complete unit that explores many different aspects of a hero’s character and suggests some good websites to enhance students’ investigations.  The unit titled “Heroes are Made of This: Studying the Characters of Heroes” uses individual and group activities to appeal to different types of learners. You can use the entire unit or pick and choose from the activities to meet your needs.  One useful supplemental website they suggested is called My Hero Project.  This is a place where students can discover modern day heroism as people creatively present their heroes to the world using the Internet.

Joann has selected some other very valuable resources that will be posted daily on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  Please watch for these posts so you can find resources that will help you include the study of the hero’s journey into your classroom. 

~Peggy's Corner - 8/12/2011

Civil War Connections

We study history to learn from other people’s mistakes and successes. More importantly than learning the facts about particular historical events, we want students to form connections with the history they are studying so they can apply the lessons to their own lives. In order to do this, we can help students compare and contrast historical characters and events to current events and people. The featured resources on The Gateway to 21^st Century Skills this week employ creative techniques for the study of the American Civil War. Using these resources with some of the following ideas will help you frame the war in a contemporary way and connect the learning to things currently affecting students’ lives.

To help your students put the Civil War into perspective, it might be helpful to compare the statistics with events that have happened during your students’ lives. Without this type of comparison, the numbers and facts can seem very abstract and it can be hard for students to identify with the war. It’s hard to believe that 7,000 men died in the first twenty minutes of one battle in the war. Is there anything in our more recent history that we can use to help us wrap our mind around that number? To put it into a more current perspective, nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on September 11, 2001. The devastation of that loss in our nation is still fresh in students’ minds, and it illustrates the impact that the loss of over twice that many people would have on a small but growing nation. By the end, the total deaths during the civil war reduced the American population by 2%. Based on today’s national population of over 300 million people, a civil war today with the same percentage of fatalities would claim 6 million lives. Wow. This number is astronomical compared to the thousands of Americans killed in action in current conflicts.

Comparing statistics with current numbers can help students get a big-picture idea of how the civil war compares to current conflicts. Creating a personal connection to the events can come about when students get to know the characters involved. One fun way to do this is to have your students create a fake Facebook profile detailing the person’s life. Free Technology for Teachers, a blog I read regularly, explains three different ways to do this. Students can present their Facebook pages to the class, and they can be creative with the status updates and information they use to present their character. You can also let your students choose other ways to present information about historical events and characters. Some ideas to suggest to your students are a mock job interview or news interview, a political speech, or writing and illustrating a historical fiction story about the event.

As students begin to know and understand more about the people involved in the Civil War, they might be able to gain some empathy toward them. Today we see how tragic it is when our service members are injured and killed in conflict. This tragedy was magnified in earlier wars where the death toll was magnitudes greater. An empathy for the people and a connection to their plight will help students learn from the mistakes and successes of major historical events like the American Civil War.

~Peggy's Corner - August 4, 2011~

Real World Science

Not all of the students in my chemistry class will be going on to earn a technical degree in college. Although understanding the intricacies of balancing equations, predicting the products of reactions, and carefully following the scientific method is important for these students, they also need to learn to be educated consumers of scientific information. As new technology evolves, I want my students to have the combination of background knowledge and research skills that will allow them to research and understand scientific breakthroughs throughout their adult lives.

Students are constantly searching for ways they will use what they learn in the “real world.” It is what we are preparing them for, after all! Finding real world applications for students as often as possible. It is hard for many students to find the drive and motivation to study and learn about a subject when there is no obvious connection to their immediate lives.

Joann is discussing nanotechnology resources this week on the Gateway. The resources she selected will help students understand how the science of nanotechnology works in products they use every day. These are some great ideas for bringing real world applications of chemistry to your students. Nanotechnology is one example of a cutting-edge use of science in industry, and there are plenty more examples you can relate to all different disciplines of science. What are some ways to incorporate new technology and current scientific events into the science classroom?

A simple way to relate science topics to students’ lives is to begin each unit with a short-term student directed project related to the particular topic of study. Doing this will help students invest a little time on the topic, creating more interest when you start teaching about it. You could also choose to conclude a unit with the same type of project instead. This will allow students to use their knowledge and find their own real world connections.

Much like social studies teachers emphasize the importance of discussing current events, science teachers can set aside time to talk about current events in science. Chemistry is advancing all different kinds of cutting-edge technology that is important in students’ lives. Students might be surprised by the cool things happening in science! Having a time to discuss current scientific events could be a nice addition for many science classrooms.

It is fun to watch movies and television shows that depict technology of the future, and it can be even more fun to find out what types of futuristic technologies are already here. Prime time television is full of “science,” but often it can be hard to decipher between fact and fiction. One neat project idea for a chemistry or biology class would allow students to find examples of science on TV. Some good places to look are in shows about crime, detectives, and the legal system. CSI and Law & Order are a couple that come to mind. Once students find ideas, create a class list of topics they can research. Each student or group of students would be required to pick a topic and research whether or not their chosen technology is used in the real world. If the technology is not yet available, they can present the type of research and testing that is taking place in order to make that technology a reality.

Here are some examples of project ideas that students can choose from:

Create a short documentary about the history of the technology in question.

Stage a debate about the ethics surrounding the technology.

Create a visual comparison of the technology to previous technology.

Design a visual/hands-on/multisensory explanation of the technology.

Direct a commercial touting the benefits of the technology.

Design and carry out an experiment to compare or demonstrate a technology.

Create lesson plans to teach younger students about the topic.

When students present their findings (creatively, of course), they should find ways to connect their research to what they have been learning in class. Aha! This is how they will use science in the real world!

~Peggy's Corner - July 27, 2011~