The Arboretum offers many opportunities for students and their teachers to continue connecting with nature and learning about natural phenomenon virtually. Read below to find your next adventure!
30-Minute Nature
These are ready-made Google Slides available for download and use with Grades K-5 students. Their purpose is to allow children to notice and observe nature, engage in thoughtful science talk, and discover playful ways to take this learning outdoors. Each slide deck comes with extensive Teacher Notes in the speaker notes section of every slide. Each slide deck provides 30 minutes of nature learning, but inspires a lifetime of nature noticing!
Leaves save their most visible trick for last before they are gone. This slide deck explores the science behind color change and gets students thinking a little bit differently about fall foliage. Children who collect their own leaves can use them alongside the lesson to enhance scientific communication skills.
Acorns are so much more than hard things to throw around! They play a central role in a forest ecosystem and have to “work” very hard at surviving numerous challenges. A series of replicable experiments and close observation slides will get your students working and thinking like ecologists.
In botany, the fruit is a plant structure that carries the seeds inside, whether they are edible by humans or not. Students will be introduced to a huge variety of colorful fall fruit that entice animals to eat them and then excrete their seeds for successful dispersal and begin the next generation. Follow this slide deck with hands-on fruit and seed explorations that can lead to new questions and investigations.
Plants have evolved to find the most effective and efficient way to spread their progeny around. Through a series of videos, experiments and close observations, students will discover that the form of a fruit offers clues to its dispersal function. Then, get outside to find local examples of all seed dispersal methods learned.