Keystone Weekly
volume 3, issue 5        October 22, 2001

This week's Key Points: *Kit Use: Plant Growth and Development* and *Web Pick of the Week*
Scroll for details.

Kit Use Through a KSN Teacher's Eyes: Plant Growth and Development (STC)
(First of an ongoing series.)

Joy Slavin, a third grade teacher from Abington School District, shares her experiences working with STC's Plant Growth and Development. In this kit, students observe each stage in the life cycle of a simple plant. As well as following a plant through its life stages, students observe the interdependence of living things, as they cross-pollinate the flowers with dried honeybees.

Joy was part of the staff selection committee that worked on developing their new science program, and the team felt that Carolina (STC publisher) suited their need to provide a hands-on learning program. The third grade curriculum includes life cycle of a plant and so, as a third grade teacher, working with Plant Growth and Development fell to her.

Having worked with Plant Growth and Development for four years, Joy finds this kit to be one of the least complicated to prepare and use. The water and dirt is a little messy, but there are only a few lessons in which there are many materials to distribute. Joy shares that Lesson 3—which is the seed-planting lesson—should be done in two days. On Day 1, the students prepare the quads (the mini-plant containers); put in wicks, fertilizer, and soil; and water the soil. She stops there and they put their quads on the watering tray. This helps her to see which student's quads are not getting enough water before they plant the seeds. By breaking the process up into two days, the students seem to have a better success rate in growing the seeds.

Joy also recommends making some lesson additions. She shares:
"I add a few lessons at the beginning in which my students observe various seeds, rather than just the lima bean seed in Lesson 2. Later on, I also add another lesson on bees so that the children may learn more about them. I also do Lesson 3 first, and then as the seeds are germinating, I do the lesson with the lima bean. It seems to help the children connect what is happening to their own seed that they have planted."

Although Joy enjoys teaching this kit, she explains that keeping up with the fast-growing plants requires her to teach science nearly every day, putting other subjects on hold for a few weeks.

Joy's not the only one who enjoys Plant Growth and Development. Every morning, her students check on the health and growth of their plants. Working on this kit gives them a rare opportunity to interact in small groups, the responsibility to follow directions if they want to get the desired result, and the freedom to pose questions and follow their senses of wonder.

* * * * * * * *

Want to see what using STC's Plant Growth and Development looks like in the classroom? Check out Toni Newman's and Kay Buffaloe's site visit journals.

[Back to Top]

Web Pick of the Week
Virtual Field Trips
http://www.field-guides.com/index.htm

Offering "online education inside the classroom and out," the Virtual Field Trip site sets out to take students and teachers on a tour of the best nature resources on the web through careful orchestration. There are also detailed teacher's resources for each field trip, providing links to background information on the topic as well as lesson plans and study guides.

Although virtual field trips lack the sensory experiences of real field trips, they allow a student to move at his or her own pace, tap into many expert resources, and they can be repeated many times without having to leave the classroom.

[Back to Top]

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

webteam@keystone.fi.edu

© 2003. All rights reserved.