Wild Flower Project

Class 1
Introduction (10- 15 min) - Thought Provoking Question - What makes a wild flower, wild? Students will be given note cards to write a short answer to the question. They will be asked to partner up compare answers. They then must create a new definition as to what they think a wild flower is. Each group will then share their answer with the class and we will come up with a class definition.

Explore - (10 - 20 min) students will use computers and the internet to look at various kinds of native texas wild flowers.

Types of Flowers - http://www.lone-star.net/wildflowers/sightings.htm
When flowers are in bloom - http://pages.prodigy.net/jospencer/

Explain - (20-30 min) Students will focus on the structure and function of wild flower plant parts brought in by the teacher, through dissection, observation and reporting.

Class 2
Elaborate - (10-15 min) Students will be assigned the wild flower project. Their goal is to explore the community surrounding the school, their neighborhoods and the city to find as many different kinds of wild flowers as possible. They will photograph the flowers in their natural state and then collect specimens to be brought back to the school to be pressed, laminated and then identified based on the characteristics of the plant. Each species is worth 5 points and the number of different kinds of families is worth 10 points. Their goal is to reach 100 points or more.

Elaborate 2 - (20 min) Powerpoint presentation of the characteristics of wild flowers and how to identify a wild flower versus a store bought flower.

Class 3
Closure - (90 min) At then end of the project the students will be required to create a digital presentation of their work to be presented to the class. Each presentation should last about 7 to 10 minutes. This is where the students really get to be creative.
Presentations could include the following:
- music video of wild flower adventure and discoveries
- movie of wild flower adventure and discoveries
- powerpoint of wild flower adventure and discoveries

Ideas:
-digital nature sketches of the flowers (just like Darwin did of the finches on Galapagos)
-music
-photography
-graphics
-animation
-digitalart collage
-digital created poster
-digitally created book

-anything goes as long as it's a digital presentation and is approved by the teacher.