SBI3C

Plants only do photosynthesis. 

Any time students learn about plants, we underscore the importance of photosynthesis. Plants may be known for their abilities to take carbon dioxide and to generate oxygen, but they also consume that oxygen and produce carbon dioxide via the process of cellular respiration, too! Depending on the level of light, the net amount of gas a plant produces will change!

Students should be reminded that while we usually learn about cellular respiration when we talk about animals, we cannot forget about it when we are talking about plants! This resource from BBC’s Bitesize provides a chart that organizes this information clearly for a student who is struggling with understanding how the two opposite processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration occur within the same plant!

 

All of a plant’s traits are adaptations, and plants adapt.

The curriculum involves an explicit look at plant’s adaptations. We task students with designing plants which are adapted to their environments, and need to be careful not to perpetuate misconceptions about adaptation. Two of these, that all of a plant’s traits are adaptations, and that plants adapt perfectly to suit their environments, are particularly important to address in this lesson.

Resources like this list from Berkeley’s Understanding Evolution of common misconceptions around evolution provides an overview of how to work through students’ misconceptions, providing links for further information and resources. As a teacher, I would make sure that I have provided my students with a firm foundation when it comes to ideas about evolution and natural selection. In dispelling misconceptions about this topic, I might use a TED-Ed video titled “Myths and Misconceptions about Evolution” which looks at a host of misconceptions, not just relegated to plants, in a way that is not intimidating or boring.

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Plants grow solely on the land.

Oftentimes, we teach our students about biological concepts in very defined realms. If you think about a biology textbook showing images and diagrams of a plant, you probably don’t think about aquatic plants. In Lesson 4: Plants Designer, students perform a jigsaw reading activity where they read about the adaptations of plants across various habitats/environments. One of these is an aquatic environment. Using resources like the one included from Missouri Botanical Gardens to expose students to these types of plants will go far to dispelling the misconception that plants only grow on land.