Planet Earth Pages

Compiled by the staff of the School Nature Area Project (SNAP); Matt Neilsen, Andrea Swanson, Char Bezanson, Nalani McCutcheon, Gary Deason, Craig Johnson, Bill Lindquist.

• Grades K-3
  • Math
  • Science
  • Art
  • Social Studies
  • Language Arts
• Grades 4-6
  • Math and Art
  • Science
  • Language Arts
  • Social Studies
• Grades 7-8
  • Art
  • Social Studies
  • Science
  • Language Arts
• Grades 9-12
  • Language Arts
  • Science
  • Math
  • Personal and Family Life

Grades K-3

Math

Landscape Tally

Take a walk, looking for different colors, shapes, or objects. Have students keep a tally sheet, marking down the objects as the class finds them. Make simple graphs to represent the numbers in the various categories. How would you describe your area to someone from another city or country?

Classifications

Have students collect 20 or so leaves that they find lying on the ground, and sort them into different piles (by color, shape, etc.). Discuss how different classification criteria leads to different pile distributions. What are some of the criteria we use to classify groups of organisms such as mammals, birds, plants, and insects? How might our ordering change if we sorted using different criteria?

Science

Wild Groceries

Discuss the position of items in a grocery store: some are on the top shelf, some on the floor, some are stored in the basement. Have students look at the outside environment as a grocery store. What types of food are located on the top shelf (canopy), lower shelf (understory), bottom shelf (ground), and basement (underground). From what shelves do different animals `shop'? Do most animals `shop' from one specific shelf, or are they evenly distributed?

Animal Tracks

Look for animal tracks in mud, sand or snow. Have the students try to move their bodies in such a way as to leave track patterns similar to those they have seen. How difficult is it to move like other animals? Do you think rabbits, deer or mice would have problems walking like us? How does this relate to the concept of adaptation?

Art

Nature Crayons

Have students collect small samples of leaves, twigs, dirt, berries, etc., and rub them on a piece of paper to determine what color, if any, their `nature crayon' has. Have them draw a picture using the colors they can find in their area. Caution them on what items they shouldn't use (poison ivy, nettles, live animals, etc.)

Eyes

Have students `try on' the eyes of other animals. To simulate having an eye on the top of your head, hold a small mirror face up and level in your hand and look straight into it. Try walking a few yards with this view. For an eye on the side of the head, hold the mirror perpendicular to the ground and facing to the side. How do these views of the world differ from our own? Why do you suppose some animals would want to have eyes in different places? What role does seeing things in different ways play in art?

Social Studies

Landscape Changes

Obtain journals of settlers in your area, and read aloud to the students any descriptions of the landscape in your area. Take a walk outside and make notes on what you see. How has the landscape changed since the settlers were here? How is it the same? If you, as a class, wrote a description of your landscape, what would it be? Read Dandelions by Eve Bunting and talk about the challenges and changes in landscape the characters experienced.

Language Arts

ABC Hike

Walk around outside looking for things that begin with the letters of the alphabet. As you come across an ant, have the students either write about or draw a picture of the ant under the letter A. See how many letters of the alphabet you can cover.

Grades 4-6

Math and Art

Signature Trees

Identify a signature tree that is representative of the trees in your area. Every year, have students measure the circumference of the trunk at chest height and determine its diameter, the diameter of the canopy, and the height of the tree. Measure the length and width of randomly selected leaves and determine average size. Compare the data from year to year. What patterns of growth do you see?

Each year, have students draw pictures of the tree from a variety of angles. Label them carefully and save them in your woodland archive. When students display their finished drawing, show them drawings from past years. What changes do they see? Take pictures of students standing next to the tree.

Science

Animal Communities

Explore animal communities that might make their home in or around the signature tree. What evidence do you see of them? What role does this tree play in the life of the woodland?

Fall Colors

As the leaves begin to change color, pull off a leaf every day. Dry them in a press. Record the dates they were picked. When all are dry, laminate them on a poster with their dates. Explore pigmentation and find out the reason leaves change color.

Language Arts

Tree Tales

Have small groups of students sit silently for a short period of time next to a tree. What sounds do they hear? Where do they come from? If the tree could talk, what stories could it tell? Write a haiku, cinquain, or other poem about the tree. Read My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George about a boy who spends a year in the woods making his home inside a carved out hemlock tree. Write a sequel set in a nature area close to you.

Social Studies

Prairie Changes

Explore the role of the prairie in the lives of Native people. How did it change as the Europeans moved in? How did their attitude toward the prairies differ? Let students sit quietly in the prairie and imagine what life was like. What is the future of prairies in North America? (This can be adapted for other ecosystems.)

Grades 7-8

Art

Nature in Art

Look at illustrations and paintings of landscapes and natural objects such as leaves, shells, twigs and stones. What is the artist trying to communicate? A feeling, an impression, a detail, technical information? What are some different ways that artists might represent the same object? Have students pick an item or a feature (a tree, a twig, a dry grass) and represent it in different ways, perhaps focusing on line, color or `impression' one day, and on accurate proportions and specific details on another. What are the advantages of each?

Social Studies

Medicinal Herbs

Identify and research plants that were used by Native Americans and early European settlers as medicinal herbs. Collaborate with a local naturalist to determine if any of these plants grow locally. Are they native, or were they brought to North America by European settlers? Are any still in use? (Examples: Echinacea, Golden Seal, Ginseng, Chamomile, Peppermint.) Conduct a field trip to point out local medicinal herbs and try some herbal teas made from them. Plan a garden of native medicinal herbs for your school ground. Useful references: Kelly Kindscher, Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie, Univ. of Kansas Press, 1992; Laura C. Martin,Wildflower Folklore, Globe Pequot Press, 1984.

Science

Seed Strategies

In autumn, collect dry seed heads from weeds and wildflowers. Have students draw, dissect, and analyze the seed heads with the following questions in mind: Where are the seeds? How can you tell? Are they different? Do some appear to be more `ripe' than others? What makes you think so? What strategy does this plant use to distribute its seed? Are all the seeds released at once, or a few at a time? Does seed distribution depend on animals, wind, or something else? How do the characteristics of the seed increase its chances of finding a good place to grow? How are these dry seeds different from seeds in fleshy fruits? What is the function of the fleshy fruit?

Sowing Wild Seeds

Try germinating `wild' seeds by rolling them in a moist paper towel, and putting the towel in a plastic bag. Keep it in a warm place for a week or two. How are wild seeds different from seeds we buy? Do germination rates differ between species? Have students research seed dormancy in plant science textbooks or references. What purpose does dormancy serve?

Language Arts

No Uncertain Terms

Investigate the need for specialized terminology. In autumn, collect several different kinds of grasses, including seed heads, from your school nature area or a local natural area. Have students describe the grasses in detail, but without using any specialized terms. Post all the descriptions of each species of grass together. How much alike are they? How long are they? Could you be sure which grass was being described?

Using a resource such as Brown (see below), teach a short lesson on grass terminology. Include terms such as blade, sheath, node, inflorescence, and spikelet. Have students describe the grasses again, using the new terms they have learned. Compare the descriptions. How have they changed? Now, how similar are the descriptions to each other? How long are they? What conclusions can we draw about specialized terms? When is it beneficial to use them, and when does using them interfere with communication? (This activity could also be done with dry seed heads, as a prelude to the Science activity.) Useful reference: Lauren Brown, Grasses: An Identification Guide, Houghton-Mifflin, 1979.

Grades 9-12

Language Arts

Life Like a River

Discuss the concept of watersheds and the idea that rivers and lakes develop characteristics which reflect the `journeys' of the water flowing into them. Extend this concept to consider `cultural watersheds.' How did people `flow' to this place? What experiences did they have in getting here? How does the community reflect the characteristics of the people living there? Visit a river or stream and compare in writing the role and growth of the river with your own. Begin with questions such as, How old is the river? What are the signs of its age? How is it viewed? Who depends upon it? Compare/contrast what you have observed about the river with your own growth and responsibilities. At this point in your life, how are you viewed? What are your responsibilities? Who depends on you?

Science

Foot Loading

The ability to travel through snow to obtain food and shelter is crucial to many animals. Their travel is influenced both by the characteristics of the snow and their own physical characteristics. Heavier animals generally have larger feet and longer legs than lighter animals. One way to study how different animals move through snow is to compare foot loads.

A footload is an animal's mass per unit foot area. To compare foot loads, the following foot load index is used: 100 - (g/cm2)/10. Before going outside have students calculate their body mass in kilograms (pound weight x 454/1000) and their foot area (foot length x foot width). Go outside and measure foot penetration in undisturbed and packed snow. Construct a graph showing the relationship between class members' foot load indexes and foot penetration. Calculate the foot loading index of a pet cat or dog and compare. Discuss the implications of big and little feet for animals living in snowy environments.

Math

Weighty Water

Measure how much water actually comes down when it rains. First, calculate the area of the school yard. Measure the next rainfall and calculate the volume of water that fell on the school grounds (depth x area). Compare this volume to equivalent quantities the students would recognize. For added effect have the students calculate the weight of this water (1 cubic foot weighs 28.4 kg/62.5 lbs). Discuss where all this water goes.

Personal and Family Life

Animal Clans

Throughout history cultures have used clan animals to create a closeness to the natural world. Begin by administering a personality inventory, such as the Myers-Briggs Inventory, in which each student will be given a descriptive label such as "extroverted, intuitive, feeling, perceptive" and an explanation of what the terms mean. Outside in a natural area, ask students to list the living things they see, and to add the animals living there that they did not see on this visit. Discuss the characteristics of a few of the species. Back in the classroom tell the students they will be forming `clans' and selecting a plant or animal that best represents their traits. Each group should research several species, select one that is representative of their group, and list the qualities of their clan species that they find inspiring and want to foster in their own lives. Develop visual displays that highlight these traits and that can be used to introduce the clan to the rest of the class.