LESSON DESCRIPTIONS

KINDERGARTEN

Hello Garden: Kindergartners embark upon an exploratory adventure in the school garden. This lesson provides students with the opportunity develop their observational skills while orienting them to the school garden.
A Hole is to Dig: Students investigate the contents of soil and share their discoveries.
Soil Sift: Students use sifters, funnels, measuring cups, and other containers to determine the properties of various soils.
Compare the Area of Leaves: Children are introduced to the idea of surface area and practice this abstract concept by measuring the area of a leaf with nonstandard units, such as beans, buttons, or bottle caps.
Anatomy of a Snack: Students identify plant parts as they snack on them.

Who's My Habitat?: First graders participate in a garden-based scavenger hunt during which they discover mutualistic relationships between plants and various garden critters.
Food Machines: Students are introduced to the concept of photosynthesis and the vital part that plants play in the food chain. During this lesson, students plant seedlings and snack on edible plant parts.
Nest Builders: Students survey a variety of different nests and work in pairs to build bird nests from natural materials found around the school grounds.
Home Hunt: Students examine the structure and function of various animal homes and conduct an outdoor search for animal homes around the garden and school grounds.

Life Cycle of a Tomato: Students study the life cycle of a plant as they save tomato seeds from heirloom tomatoes harvested in the school garden and plant them in the late winter/early spring to grow new seedlings.
Get a Grip, Amazing Plants, Rooting for Water, & From Flowers to Fruit: Students become more familiar with the Scientific Method as they conduct a series of experiments on radish, bean, and pea plants.
From Seed to Pretzel: Students experience the life cycle of the wheat plant by planting wheat seeds in October, harvesting and threshing the wheat in late May, grinding the wheat berries to make flour, and baking pretzels.
Leaf Attributes: Students collect and compare the attributes of various leaves as they work with a small group to create an “Attribute Train” organizing their leaves based on shared characteristics.
Locating Garden Treasures: Children review coordinate graphing as they work in pairs to locate “treasures” in the garden using a life-sized coordinate grid.
Soil Discoveries, Mudshakes, & Does it Hold Water?: Students investigate the physical properties of soil as they explore the contents of garden soil, discover that the components of soil have different densities, and conduct an experiment to determine which types of soil hold the most water.

Garden Pollinators: Third graders learn about various pollinators and realize their impact on the garden.
Color World: Students review the Scientific Method as they experiment to see which wavelengths of light contribute the most to plant growth.
Adapt a Seed: Students investigate the different methods of seed dispersal and work in small groups to design and test their own seed dispersal mechanisms.
Three Sisters Garden: In the spring, students apply what they have learned about intercropping as they design and plant a Native American garden as a gift to next year’s third graders. During the fall, incoming third grade students harvest and make measurements of the crops and participate in a garden scavenger hunt.
The Great & Powerful Worm: Students become familiar with the anatomy of an earthworm and observe the role of the worm as a soil tiller by creating and monitoring a worm bin. The worms are eventually set free in the school garden to help produce fertile soil.
What Good is Compost?: Students are introduced to the science behind compost and conduct a scientific experiment to measure the impact of compost on plant growth.

Angle Search: While exploring for angles in the garden, fourth graders categorize angles by their measures. Students identify angles around them by creating angles with their hands, and searching for angles in the garden with calipers
Habitat Hike, Mystery Habitats: Students demonstrate their observation and description skills as they investigate and examine what lives within a schoolyard microhabitat.
Sustainable Systems: Students apply resource cycling to a real world-problem while touring the garden and reviewing a list of inputs and outputs into the garden system, including their own labor.
Symmetry Inside Fruit: Students explore bilateral symmetry, rotational symmetry and asymmetry within fruit from the garden. They discover beautiful designs and structures, many of which have influenced art and architecture.

Light Action: Fifth graders observe the amount of air bubbles released from an aquarium plant when it is exposed to light and test to see if these air bubbles are similar to the air we exhale. They discover how plants and animals exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Planting in Circles: Students are introduced to the radius, diameter, and circumference of circles by planting circular beds in the garden. They plant flowers to mark the center, the radius and the diameter of each circle.
Star Food: Students discover whether or not photosynthesis can be increased by reflecting more light onto a plant.

Ancient Civilizations – How Plants Shaped History: Students plant in the fall and spring plants which helped shape civilizations in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia and India and learn geography by tracing the plants' origins. Students can also cook common ancient dishes from harvested crops or make papyrus paper.
Biodoversity: Sixth graders use the book Atlas of Biodiversity of California to answer questions about the significance of California's biodiversity and to do research on a specific topic related to biodiversity. Pairs of students will produce a power point presentation with the responses and research findings along with some photographs of animals and/or plants relevant to their research topic.
The Nitrogen Cycle: In three lessons spanning the school year sixth graders learn about nitrogen fixing plants, and examine bacteria nodules to learn one way that nitrogen from the air is fixed into the soil. They examine evidence about the mutually beneficial interaction between Rhizobia and legumes by uprooting the legume plants, comparing the roots of legumes to those of non-legumes and testing the soil for nitrogen content.