SBI3C

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A hallmark of what I consider engaging teaching to be is the use of diverse teaching strategies. Committing to incorporating a variety of teaching strategies keeps me developing as a teacher and ensures that my students will not get bored with my teaching. In the resources included on this website, I tried to highlight some of my favourite methods for introducing new ideas, consolidating big lessons, and challenging students to think beyond the classroom.

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Lesson 1: Planting the Seed

• Mentimeter: This teaching and presentation resource allows students to text in answers to a question, creating a word cloud anonymously. Teachers can ask questions for diagnostically assessing their students prior knowledge or takeaways for a day, and this promotes the productive use of technology in class. In lesson one, we use one to check in with students’ appreciation for the role of plants in society and our impacts on plants in the world.

• KWL Chart: This chart has columns for students to fill in what they Know, what they Want to know, and finally, what they have Learned for a lesson or unit. Its use helps to consolidate learning and to provide an opportunity for reflection.

• Inquiry: Taking an inquiry-driven approach with students invites them to explore questions rather than to act as passive receptors of knowledge. Rather than providing our students with content, we ask them to solve a problem or consider a real-life question, learning in the process of coming up with a solution or an answer. In this lesson, we ask students to predict what will happen with a series of leaf cuttings, placed in soil and in water.

• Digital Video Game: The use of a digital video game is another opportunity to use technology to engage students, making the content a portion of a greater activity or project. In this lesson, students play a game called “Plants in Pants,” which was designed by the teacher herself. While the game is fun, it is also informative, reviewing the reactants of photosynthesis.

• Video: Videos provide visual and oral opportunities for students to learn. Ensuring that we include a wide variety of media and modes of learning in our teaching caters to the diverse learners in our classroom. In this lesson, students review photosynthesis via an animated and engaging video.
  
  Go to Lesson 1: Planting the Seed

 

Lesson 2: A Wild Decision Case Study

• Case Study: Inspired by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, this type of approach presents students with a complex, real-life issue. In the process of exploring it, students are exposed to content relevant to the subject area. In our case study lesson, the students are exposed to a case study about a greening initiative at a condo building.

• Multiliteracies Theory: This case study is underpinned by an appreciation for multiliteracies theory. The students receive information pertinent to the case in a variety of formats, including articles, blogs, and social media. This provides an opportunity for a multiliteracies consideration of the sources of our knowledge. In the assignment portion of the case, when students are asked to take a position and represent it, they can choose from a variety of methods, requiring a multitude of literacies: video/speech presentation, song/art/poem presentation, poster/infographic presentation,

• Think, Pair, Share: This approach allows students to share their ideas and to build off of one another’s. During the case study, students are asked to work in this way. Before sharing with the class, there are opportunities for low-stakes sharing, allowing for a more vibrant class discussion.

• Plickers: This resource allows teachers to print off cards which students can rotate to reflect an A, B, C, or D answer to a question projected on the board. By scanning the room with their device, a teacher can take in all of the answers the students hold up, attaching them to the student or leaving things as an anonymous poll. This is a form of diagnostic assessment, and also a chance to review concepts from the day before.

• Gallery Walk: This type of presentation format, where students walk around and see each other’s work, presenting for small groups rather than for an entire class, is a good format particularly in situations where students might be nervous.
  
  Go to Lesson 2: A Wild Decision Case Study

 

Lesson 3: Walk in the Woods

• Outdoor Classroom: Taking students outside is, in my opinion, and undervalued exercise. A unit like “Plants in the Natural Environment” should not be confined to a classroom. This lesson takes students into the woods and invites them to observe plants in nature, with some of the curriculum content being addressed as on-the-spot opportunities arise.

• Leafsnap: This app allows uses visual recognition to identify plants species based on photos of the leaf. Students can use this to identify plants and to understand some of the distinguishing features of different species they encounter. In this lesson, students identify different types of plants (ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms, and mosses) and use the app to help them understand the details of the species they see on the walk.

• Explain Everything: This collaborative, interactive app allows students to annotate photos, drawing and writing directly on the image. We use this to explain how we identified the type of plant a student identified in their leafsnap adventures.
  
  Go to Lesson 3: A Walk in the Woods

 

Lesson 4: Plant Designer

• Think, Pair, Share: I use this teaching strategy multiple times, purposefully. While variety is the spice of life, having students do this kind of small to big sharing is something I want to be a hallmark of my classroom. I hope that it helps to create a safe classroom environment, where students feel safe to share their thoughts. In this lesson, students are brainstorming plant adaptations and ideas about adaptations more generally following the use of an introductory video. 

• Jigsaw: This strategy splits the classroom up, with smaller groups taking on specific tasks before coming together to complete a task. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the big picture comes together when the groups share their pieces. In this lesson, I would have students leave their home group, which was responsible for researching one of the habitats/environments, to form new groups. These new groups would have a representative from each habitat, allowing the students to learn from each other in order to complete their worksheet, which serves as a note.

• Guest speaker: Connecting students to their community is of utmost importance. Linking learning to the world beyond the classroom helps to create interest and bringing in those who are passionate about their careers helps to provide role models that are important in helping students think ahead to their career plans and aspirations. In this lesson, a guest speaker who is adept at the type of design we will be doing in tinkercad will come in to speak to the students and to offer assistance during their work period.  

• Models: Modelling, in a sense, is an opportunity for students to come up with creative ideas that apply the content knowledge they’ve learned in class. In this lesson, students are responsible for planning and designing models of plants which are ideally suited to live in an environment they receive at random.

• Tinkercad: This is a 3D CAD design tool that allows anyone to come up with designs that could eventually be printed using a 3D printer. Whether or not the designs go to print, such an exercise is an opportunity for students to
  
  Go to Lesson 4: Plant Designer

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Other resources

There are endless resources when it comes to extending learning around plants. So many interesting topics exist, and resources have been created by a variety of individuals and organizations. The hardest part about teaching students about plants is finding time for all of these amazing learning opportunities!

 

Tropism:

• “The Mystery of Why Sunflowers Turn to Follow the Sun -- Solved”: This article is a discussion of why sunflowers turn to the sun while they are young, but then face just to the east.  

• “Why Sunflowers Face the Sun”: This video provides more information on sunflower’s interesting habit of following the sun.

 

Pollination:

• “Bees Added To U.S. Endangered Species List For 1st Time”: This article is an opportunity to take the concept of sexual reproduction in plants--and its importance--and to consider it in a very relevant, societally-impactful way. It is linked to society in multiple ways, and invites a discussion regarding conservation efforts, too.

• “Report: More Pollinator Species in Jeopardy, Threatening World Food Supply”: This article is another look at the implications of our endangered pollinators. Students hearing that coffee, apples, cacao, cotton, mangoes, and almonds are at risk might make the concepts related to pollinators a bit more pressing, and might see the reliance we have on plants in a new light when we talk about our food supply.
   

Plants in Space

• “Veggie Plant Growth System Activated on International Space Station”: This would serve as an engaging hook, and an entrypoint into discussions of what plants need to grow. It also highlights technology, something we should always be exploring in our science classrooms.  

 

General Resources:

• Missouri Botanical Gardens download centre is complete with lesson plans for various grade levels. They lend themselves well to the Plants strand and in particular to the adaptations aspect of the curriculum.