Plant Scavenger Hunt

Lesson Plan Description:
• Enduring Understanding Statement:
Plant structure and function affects their survival.

• Essential Question:
How do plants provide for their basic needs? (parts and processes)

• Objectives:
1. 4.4 The student will investigate and understand basic plant anatomy and life process. Key concepts include:
a) the structures of typical plants (leaves, stems, roots, and flowers)
b) processes and structures involved with reproduction (pollination, stamen, pistil, sepal, embryo, spore, and seed)

Lesson Activities:
1. Break students into groups of 3-4 students.
2. Provide each student with the scavenger hunt list of items to be found.
3. Provide each group with a FLIP camera and a project description sheet.
4. Go over the project description sheet:
a. To show understanding of the unit concepts each group will create a movie showing each of the items their group found on the Scavenger Hunt list. (Items on list: seed producer, spore producer, ferns, mosses, roots, seeds, leaves, petals, pollen, stamen, pistil, sepal, and embyo.)
b. The movie must show each item individually with a label and brief description.
c. Each group must provide a bibliography of any print and digital resources they use during the course of the project.
d. Each group will create a script of their movie before they begin creating it on the computer using MovieMaker.
5. Review how to use the FLIP cameras. (start, stop, zoom in and out, transfer files to computer.)
6. Remind students of the deadline for this project and the fact that working together as a team is essential.
7. Provide time for research in the classroom and a walking field trip of the school grounds so students can film living examples of items on the list.
8. Provide each group work time with the NASCO plant model to get any of the items which they could not find on the walking field trip or that are too small to see on a normal plant without dissecting it.
9. Provide work time for students to use the classroom computers for research and to create their movies.
10. Once students have created their movies, each group will share their movie with the class. Finished movies will be posted to Blackboard for parents to see and for students to review.