Grow, Plants, Grow!
First Grade has a green thumb! The central idea for our unit on How the world works is “Plants have specific needs that must be met in order to grow, be healthy and survive.” Within this unit of inquiry, the students have learned all about plant parts, the needs of plants, the jobs of the roots, stem, leaves, and flower, and plant life cycles. Learning the vocabulary for all of these topics helped the students as they prepared to delve deeper into the inquiry process and started getting their hands dirty (literally!).
In order to truly get an understanding of how plants work and grow, the students were asked to do a variety of science experiments. One of the lines of inquiry for this unit was “the scientific method,” and what better way is there to start learning about the proper steps of carrying out a science experiment than by trying it out! As a class, the students participated in an experiment based on celery to better understand the job of the stem and how plants move water.
Following the steps of the scientific method, students began by first asking a question: “What will happen when we soak celery in colored liquid?” Based off of that question, students each came up with their own hypothesis, or best guess, of what would happen to the celery. Together, we discussed the various steps that we would need to take to carry out the experiment: cutting the celery, putting the celery stalks into red water and blue water, and waiting three days.
On the first day, students
took notes on what they saw and drew a picture of their observation. What did the celery look like on the first day? By the very same afternoon, many students remarked that they could already see the color of the celery changing! On day three, we took our final observations and analyzed the data. What happened to the celery? Was our hypothesis correct? Why, or why not? The students have mastered the vocabulary of plant parts and the specific jobs of each plant parts, so it was very exciting to be able to use their knowledge to discuss what was happening to the celery.
This science experiment was their first exposure to the scientific method, and set the stage for their summative assessment of growing cucumber plants (“On which side of the school will the cucumbers grow better?”). In this seven week unit, we experimented with cucumber seeds, green bean seeds, and also celery. It is our hope that through this understanding of plant needs, how plants grow, and how they function that the students will continue to develop a healthy awareness of the environment and their role in protecting all that is within nature. What a fun unit!
