Target Grade and Subject
Fourth graders are still young enough to possess that insatiable curiosity about the world and environment in which they live, and the desire to explore that world and its people and history through education. At the same time, these same students have begun at this stage to examine and understand the information they take in at a higher cognitive level. This allows a perceptive teacher to capitalize on this enthusiasm and create more challenging assignments that feed off of the enthusiasm while permitting the students to achieve at a more advanced level. At this stage students are more inclined to work in groups to pursue academic discovery in active means, as well as to work on projects that have real life meaning, rather than to conduct work in areas that lack applicability to their lives. According to Dana McMillan from the http://www.woman.com/ website, 'Parents and teachers will notice that fourth-graders have a huge appetite for learning about how things work. They are interested in everything in trying everything they see in order to experience it for themselves.' It is up to the teacher to capitalize on this energy and this 'hands-on attitude' and help the students to grow and mature, to kindle that spark before it flickers and settles in the embers. (quote from www.woman.com/family/tracker/fourth)
Objectives
SOL 4.1 The student will plan and conduct investigations in which distinctions are made among observations, conclusions (inferences), and predictions.
The student will make initial observations and predictions about the experiment to be started and record them.
The student will clearly make hypotheses about the growth of the different seeds in the different conditions.
The student will answer questions to help him make the hypothesis.
The student will correctly identify the constant and dependent variables in the experiment.
SOL 4.4 The student will investigate and understand basic plant anatomy and life processes. Key concepts include:
The student will appropriately identify the different parts of a plant's anatomy.
The student will illustrate his understanding of the roles of water and light in photosynthesis in his hypothesis.
Materials
The Lesson Plan
1. Begin a discussion about plants, asking the students what they remember about the chapter on plants they were supposed to have read the night before.
2. Then have the students take a quiz in which they have to identify the 4 main parts of a plant's anatomy on a diagram. Collect these quizzes for a grade.
3. Then begin formal instruction with a large drawing of a generic plant on the blackboard, having the students label the parts they know- and then fill in what they do not. (label the stem, roots, flower, and leaves- the 4 main parts of a plant).
4. After this, then discuss as a class the process of photosynthesis and the growth of plants, focusing on the main points of chlorophyll, carbon dioxide (air), water, light, and food.
5. Then introduce the experiment.
6. Have the students divide into 4 groups and acquire the following materials for their group:
7. Then have the students conduct the opening part of the experiment in which they:
label each of the styrofoam cups with the masking tape- making sure there is one cup for each of these categories:
Then plant a seed into each of the cups and follow the directions.
8. After having placed the appropriate cup in the box, and the appropriate cup is wrapped tightly
in saran wrap, have the students think about the lesson on photosynthesis and growth and have them in their groups then hypothesize about the growth of each plant, answering the following questions underneath the hypothesis:
9. Each group will then attempt to identify the constant and the dependent variables (a concept which they have learned yesterday in class) in this experiment underneath the hypothesis.
10. Each group will then use Microsoft Word to type up their initial observations, hypothesis, answered questions, and identification of constant and dependent variables. This will be turned in for a grade.
Evaluation Procedure
1. The anatomy quiz will be graded on correctness- it will be worth 12 points- 3 points per correct answer
2. The students will receive a participation grade based on their involvement in the group for the day: A- extremely involved and active in the dialogue; B- involved quite a bit, tried to stay involved and active in the dialogue; C-satisfactorily involved, off task or distracted part of the time; D- slightly involved, off task for the majority of the time; U- not involved, took no role in the group work, off task the entire time
3. The students will receive a group grade on their typed initial observations, hypothesis, answered questions and identified constant and dependent variables.
Initial Observations
Hypothesis itself
Questions answered
Identification of constant and DV