Plants!
An Educational Resource for Teachers

Plants are essential on this earth for many reasons. They feed themselves through the process of photosynthesis and in return become a source of food for animals, making themselves essential in our lives. Photosynthesis also removes carbon dioxide from the air and produces oxygen for us to breathe. We should be extremely grateful for plants; we depend on them for our existence! Use this pathfinder to help in teaching students how important these leafy green things are to the human race.



Reference Books

Curr/Ref Science L657 1994a	Elaine Levenson Teaching Children About Life and Earth Sciences	Curr/Ref Science S359 1980	Maxine Springer Schneider Science Projects for the Intermediate Grades This contains an entire chapter on plant sciences that has ten different experiments for students to learn from.
Curr/Ref Science M331 1980	Sandra Markle Primary Science Sampler This book starts off with background information and goes into various worksheets and activities in a section called “Green Friends.”	Curr/Ref Science S623 1982	Edith A. Sisson Nature with Children of All Ages This book contains a few pages of educational information and many more pages with fun and informational activities involving various plants.
Curr/Ref Science M661 1989	Susan Milord The Kids Nature Book 365 Indoor/Outdoor Activities and Experiences	Curr/Ref Science W584 1993a	Frank White Biological Science

A field of Texas Blubonnets--The state flower of Texas

Children's Collection

Indian Paintbrush Wild Flowers		Children 634 M626l	Charles Micucci The Life and Times of the Apple Learn everything you wanted to know about apples: how they grow, how they are used, the different types, and the legend of Johnny Appleseed.
		Children Folio 582.16 B966t	David Burnie Eyewitness Books: Tree Learn everything you have ever wanted to know about trees: how they grow, the trunk, the bark, the leaves, and everything else.
Children 635 S677b	Harriet L. Sobol A Book of Vegetables See how different vegetables grow in the garden. Pictures show carrots in the ground, eggplants on the vine and many others.	Children 635 S468e	Millicent E. Selsam and Jerome Wexler Eat the Fruit, Plant the Seed Learn how to plant the seeds from fruits after you eat them such as an avocado, a papaya, a mango and others.

Children 635 T151c

Ellen Talmage. Container Gardening for Kids Grow various plants from tomatoes flowers in various containers from shoes to a pumpkin.

	Mexican Hat Wild Flowers
Periodicals
The New Good Apple Newspaper April/May 1994 “Green Thumb Fever” by Mary Ellen Switzer p. 38-43
The New Good Apple Newspaper March/April 1997 “Plant Predictions” by Debra Orr p. 14-16
Lollipops March/April 1995 “What to do with Seeds” by Carolyn Ross Tomlin p. 34
Lollipops March/April 1996 “Arbor Day” by Tania Kourempis Cowling p. 30
Lollipops September/October 1997 “If Trees Could Talk” Tania K. Cowling p. 33-34

Internet Resources

Texas Dandelion	http://cc.usu.edu/~cachemil/carles/fieldgid.html
	This page is a field guide that a class made for plants native to their city. A great idea to use in your own town.
	http://www.dkonline.com/kids/private/nature/nature.html#plants
	This page has two links to plants found in the rainforest and plants found in the sea.
	http://www.euronet.nl/users/mbleeker/suri_eng.html
	This page has four links to different aspects of plants including the rain forests, green houses, fungi and hazardous plants.
	gopher://ericir.sye.edu:70/00/Lesson/Science/dyes
	A lesson plan that incorporates plants into art! This page guides you through making plants into dyes that can be used for painting.
	http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/SEP/life2.html#8
	This page is full of lesson plans categorized in “MINIMUM” levels of use up to the graduate level.

Curr/El BigBooks B126 rb 1994b	Christine Back and Barrie Watts Bean and Plant
Curr/El BigBooks W177h rb 1993	Colin Walker How New Plants Grow

CD ROMs

Curr/TA Computer R223 1993	Dinosaur Safari The main focus here is on dinosaurs, but along with learning about these ancient reptiles you can learn about various plants that were contemporary to the dinosaurs.	American Lotus Flower
Curr/TA Computer A489 1994	Amazon Trail This CD ROM lets you explore the Amazon and the plants found therein. You can search for, identify and photograph these beautiful and exotic plants!
Curr/TA Computer L438 1987 cd	Science Helper K-8 Need a quick lesson plan? This will take you quickly to the subject and grade you need. Classification using seeds or nuts, and loss of water from plants are a sampling of the lessons.

Manipulatives	Fonts
Curr/TA Science 89-93 Learning About Plants the Magnetic Way. This set of teaching aids includes books, an audio cassette, a magnetic board with pictures to help in studying the life cycle of plants. Great for visual teaching. Indian Blanket Wild Flowers	Here are a few of the fonts available to make any handout, bulletin board or just about anything more interesting.

Pictures found at http://www.lnstar.com/wildflowers/flowers.htm
Animation found at http://www.agag.com