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“Did You Eat That!” (Grade 1)

Master Teacher

Gaye Irick

Time Allotment

Two 50-minute class periods

Overview

Plants are an important part of our everyday lives, providing us with food, clothing, shelter, etc. In this lesson students will participate in a series of hands-on, online, and multimedia activities to examine the uses of plants. In addition, students will view a video clip from the series Debbie Greenthumb, Plants and Food.

Subject Matter

Life Science

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

Gather information to complete a graph.
State the parts of the plant (roots, stem, leaves, flower, and fruit).
Draw at least one example of a food or other resource eaten or used that we get from a plant or plant part.
List ways plants are important to our lives.

South Carolina Standards

(These Standards are available online at http://www.myscschools.com/offices/cso)

Standard II: Life Science

Plants

Characteristics of Organisms

2. Plants have basic structures.

Identify the parts of a plant (seeds, roots, stems, leaves, flower, and fruit).
Classify edible plant parts as seeds, roots, etc.

Media Components

Video

Debbie Greenthumb: The Importance of Plants To Our World, Lesson: “Plants and Food.” This video series contains information on how useful plants and plant parts are to us in our daily lives.

To access the video clip, log on to your account at ETV’s StreamlineSC Web page (http://etv.streamlinesc.org). In the search by keyword box, type Debbie Greenthumb: The Importance of Plants to Our World and hit go. Click the program title and download the video clip “Plants and Food” to your computer desktop. It runs one minute and 49 seconds.

(Note to Teacher: If you don’t have an account with ETV’s StreamlineSC, check with your media specialist or Instructional Technologist about signing up for your own account.)

Web Site

Nature Grid

( http://www.naturegrid.org./uk/)

This Web site contains interactive science activities on plants. You want the lesson entitled “Eating Plants.” On the home page click Nature Explorers, then Plant Explorer, and then Eating Plants. This activity has actual pictures for the students to identify whether the food or drink comes from a plant. The student then clicks YES or NO. The answer is revealed with a brief description.

Materials

One of the following plants, vegetables, and/or fruit per student:

Carrots

Wheat

Cotton

Celery

Oranges

Beans

Peas

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Paintbrush

Small flowering plant

Newspaper (enough to spread out on tables/student desks for easy clean up)

Activity Sheets 1, 2 and 3

Equipment

Computers
Television

Prep for Teachers

Prior to teaching this lesson, bookmark the Web site used in the lesson on the computers in your classroom. Load the Shockwave plug-in, available at http://www.macromedia.com, onto the computers in your classroom.
Preview the video clip “Plants and Food” from the Debbie Greenthumb series.
Place fruit and veggies on a table.
Have small flowering plants and newspaper readily available.
Copy Activity Sheets for students.
When using media, provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction, a specific responsibility to complete during or after viewing of video, Web sites, or other multimedia elements.

Introductory Activity

Step 1: Students will be told to use their senses and examine the fruit and veggies on the table. After three to four minutes, tell students to chose one veggie as their own.

Step 2: Ask the students the following questions:

What are some of the properties of your veggie?
Where and how does your veggie grow? (Does it grow above the ground or below the ground? On a vine, a bush, or a tree?)
What part of your plant do we often eat?

Step 3: Explain to your students that in this lesson, you will be examining foods and other items that come from plants. Tell them that sometimes we even eat a seed, a flower, a stem, a leaf and a root from a plant!

Learning Activities

Step 1: Provide students with a Focus forMedia Interaction, by asking them to look for important uses for plants.

Step 2: BEGIN the “Plants and Food” video clip just before the narrator says, “Debbie Greenthumb loves plants.” You will see Debbie watering some flowers.

Step 3: PAUSE when the narrator says, “Debbie knows that plants do more for us than make our world a prettier place.” Debbie is walking in a flower nursery with a container of small flowers.

Step 4: Ask students to name some important uses of plants. (Possible answers: clothingand food.)

Step 5: Give each student a small plant in flower, a piece of newspaper, and a paintbrush. Have the students gently remove the plant from the pot and lay it on the newspaper. Carefully brush away as much of the soil as possible. Students will identify the parts and record them in their science journals. Finally students will draw a picture and label the parts. (Parts that the student should be able to identify are the roots, stem, green leaves, and the flower.)

Step 6: Make a chart of the possible ways Debbie finds that plants are important to our daily lives. Ask students for suggestions. (Possible answers are eating and clothing.)

Step 7: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction by asking the students to watch for ways Debbie finds important. BEGIN the video where a man is standing in a grocery store in the produce department and the narrator says, “For instance, plants provide us with food.”

Step 8: PAUSE the video when the narrator says, “Apples, bananas, and oranges are fruits.”

Step 9: Check off food on the chart, if it was there. To check for comprehension, ask the students the following questions: Which plants are roots? (carrots) Which plants do we eat are leaves? (lettuce) Which plants do we eat are stems? (celery) Which plants do we eat are flowers? (broccoli) Which plant part do we eat that is a seed? (beans)

Step 10: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction asking them to watch for more ways plants are important to us.

Step 11: BEGIN the video segment where the narrator says, “There are many other important ways plants are used.” There is a picture of a green leaf and sunshine.

Step 12: PAUSE the video after you see a house under construction and the narrator says, “Lumber is used to make homes and furniture.”

Step 13: Ask students to name the uses of plants they saw in the video clip. Add medicine, rain forest, clothing, and lumber to the class list if they were not placed there at the beginning.

Step 14: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction by asking the students to continue listening for more ways that plants are used in our lives.

Step 15: BEGIN the video when you see racecars on a dirt track and the narrator says, “Gasoline, which is used to power our cars and trucks.”

Step 16: STOP the video when the narrator says, “There are more things than you can imagine that come from plants.” You will see someone flipping pages in a book.

Step 17: To check for comprehension, ask students to reflect on the many uses of plants in their science journals. Ask for volunteers to share their reflections with the class.

Culminating Activity

Step 1: Have your students log on to the Nature Grid Web site at

( http://www.naturegrid.org./uk/) Take them to the “Eating Plants” activity. (Note to Teacher: See directions under Media Components.)

Step 2: Read the directions to the students. It says, “Eating Plants. Which of these foods or drinks come from plants?”

Step 3: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction by telling them to look at the first picture. Say, “Tell me what food this is for number one.” With picture one, students may say, “This is lettuce.” You answer, “This is called water cress. It is like lettuce and it found in salads. Now answer the question, do you think this food comes from a plant?”

Students should answer “yes.” Students can check their answer by clicking on the picture. The correct answer will come up, YES or NO with a brief explanation.

Step 4: Continue in this manner through pictures of bread, fruit, bacon, carrots, and milk.

Cross-Curricular Extensions

Math: Students will use balances to find out which plant has the greater mass or less mass.

Students will use a graph called My Favorite Veggies found on Activity Sheet 3. Students will ask ten people what their favorite veggies are and fill the graph in with the answers they receive. Make sure every student gets a copy of the Activity Sheet.

Social Studies: Students will research how crops are planted, grown, and harvested. Students will present posters and displays of fruit and vegetables they have researched.

Language Arts: Students will write a descriptive story about their favorite vegetable.

Health: Students will create their own healthy meal for a day using pictures from magazines.

Art: Students will create a seed mosaic on a given pattern.

Students will make vegetable and/or leaf prints using tempera paint.

Students can press flowers.

Assessments

Informal assessment could be—

Teacher observation of computer work and student participation.

Formal assessment could be—

Activity Sheet 1, which can be used for students to complete the writing assessment. The given topic is What Are Some Products We Get From Plants?
Activity Sheet 2 presents questions which are related to the lesson. This can be given as a conclusion of the two-day lesson.

Community Connections

Invite a local farmer to come into your classroom to discuss how she/he became a farmer, the knowledge she/he uses daily and the crops she/he plants.
Invite the representative from your local Soil and Water Conservation Office to discuss planting and plant growth.
Invite a 4-H representative to visit the classroom.
Take a field trip to a local grocery store.
Take a field trip to a local farm.
Invite a member of the garden club to come to the classroom to speak.

Literature Connections

These books can be used with the Cross-Curricular Extensions.

1. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

(Scholastic Inc., 1987)

2. Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens

(Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995)

3. We Eat The Plants by Rozanne Williams

(Creative Teaching Press, Inc. 1994)

4. The Story of Corn by Lilly Ernesto

(Modern Curriculum Press, 1996)

5. Be A Friend To A Tree by Patricia Luber

(HarperCollins Publishers, 1994)