Students explore whether rooftop gardens are a viable option for combating the urban heat island effect. Can rooftop gardens reduce the temperature inside and outside houses? Teams each design and construct two model buildings using foam core board, one with a "green roof" and the other with a black tar paper roof. They measure and graph the ambient and inside building temperatures while under heat lamps and fans. Then students analyze the data and determine whether the rooftop gardens are beneficial to the inhabitants.

Easy to read and use website for kids. Great for more than just biology! Not very in depth but could be useful if doing a mini project.

DQ: How do plants get lightThis is a lesson that can be used with second grade science around the time or before the students conduct the investigation on whether plants need light to survive. The students will learn to work collaboratively and trust their own experiences about plants and engage in a modeling activity. This lesson has been edited to add the Cultivating Genius Framework by Gholdy Muhammad to the lesson. Pursuits addressed : Intellectuality, skills  

Plant genome research is already revolutionizing the field of biology. Currently, scientists are unlocking the secrets of some of the most important plants in our lives, including corn, cotton and potatoes. Secrets of Plant Genomes: Revealed! takes viewers on a lively, upbeat journey that explores how these plants got to be the way they are and investigates how we can make better use of them in the future. Plant scientists are hard at work--in the lab, in the field and at the computer--to increase our understanding of nature. Secrets of Plant Genomes: Revealed! makes the study of plants exciting and relevant by showing how learning more about plants can improve our everyday lives.

In this math meets life science lesson, learners measure the circumference of local trees in order to calculate diameters. Learners use this information and a growth rate table to estimate the age of the trees. This lesson guide includes questions for learners, assessment options, extensions, and reflection questions.

Unit plans for Grades K-2 and 3-5 are a regular feature of the magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The plans draw on articles and resources in a themed issue and are aligned with national science and language arts standards. This unit is designed to provide elementary students with the opportunity to investigate how the annual rings in trees help scientists learn about past climates. It uses hands-on experiences and nonfiction text to answer the unit question: How do trees help scientists learn about the past?

In this activity, students use models to investigate the process and consequences of water contamination on the land, groundwater, and plants. This is a good introduction to building water filters found in the associated activity, The Dirty Water Project.

The teacher leads a discussion in which students identify the physical needs of animals, and then speculate on the needs of plants. With guidance from the teacher, the students then help design an experiment that can take place in the classroom to test whether or not plants need light and water in order to grow. Sunflower seeds are planted in plastic cups, and once germinated, are exposed to different conditions. In particular, within the classroom setting it is easy to test for the effects of light versus darkness, and watered versus non-watered conditions. During exposure of the plants to these different conditions, students measure growth of the seedlings every few days using non-standard measurement. After a few weeks, they compare the growth of plants exposed to the different conditions, and make pictorial bar graphs that demonstrate these comparisons.

Biofuels are made from plants that are growing today, and are being considered as an alternative to fossil fuels. To become biofuels, plants need to go through a series of chemical and physical processes that transform the sugars into ethanol. Scientists are interested in seeing how yeast’s ability to transform sugar into fuel is affected by environmental conditions in fields, such as droughts.

This resource has been evaluated using the HQUIM rubric linked here. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y6pUBeJXq-dZLdIjWx_5rNjaj4JCttLpDm5fOt9mNsA/edit?usp=sharing

This is a virtual lab of photosynthesis that can be used for elementary through high school levels. The pdfattachment is intended for a late elementary audience but can be modified for olders students. The independent variable is light color and type of plant. There is a chart and video and journal that students can use on line. The video gives some background on the fact that white light is made up of many different colors of light. There is a ruler that can be dragged to measure the height of each plant.