Service Site: NC4-H and CEFS, North Carolina

Garden Ecosystem

FloritaCoakley

Service Site: NC4-H and CEFS, North Carolina

Theme:Garden/Growing

Ages/Grade Level:K – 5

Subject Area:Science

Lesson Title:Garden Ecosystem

Prep Time:1 hour prep time, plus time to check out materials from library

Lesson Time:15 minutes (reading); 30 minutes (exploring)

Materials:
Kindergarten – First Grade (Whose Garden Is It?), magnifying glass

Second Grade – Fifth Grade (Brother Eagle, Sister Sky); yarn; magnifying glass

Topics/Goals/Learning Objectives:In the previous lesson, students learned about garden safety regarding proper tool use and care, proper behavior, and wearing the right clothes and shoes. Each class made its own poster of six rules that promote safety, learning, and fun in the garden. One rule that each class came up with was to respect the garden and the things, people, and plants in it.

This lesson will introduce students to the possible elements that will make up their garden. It will have its own kind of soil that will grow certain types of vegetables that will attract certain animals and insects. From bees to ladybugs, tomatoes to wildflowers, the garden will have its own ecosystem that will teach us many lessons.

Opening:Ask students questions about what may be outside in the garden. Ask them to close their eyes and picture themselves standing in the garden. Ask them what kinds of things they see? What is growing? What may be creeping, crawling, or hopping around.

The Plan/Procedure/Lesson Activities:Kindergarten - First Grade – Read Whose Garden is it?; go outside and explore to see what is in the garden; look at plants in buckets to see if there are any insects making their home on the plants.

Second Grade – Fourth Grade – Read Brother Eagle, Sister Sky; make the yarn web to illustrate how life is connected; go outside and explore to see what is in the garden; look at plants in buckets to see if there are any insects making their home on the plants.

Wrap up:Ask students how different elements about which they’ve learned in previous lessons or elements about which they have common knowledge connect to each other. For example, “Why is soil important to the garden?” “Why are plants important to us?” “What happens if it doesn’t rain?”

Extensions:When you are out in the garden for other lessons or activities, ask students if they see anything in the garden that they have already learned about. Ask them if they see a ladybug and what a ladybug does to help the garden (eat insects, aphids in particular, which can suck nutrients and juices out of a plant) and how the ladybug depends on the garden to live. (The aphids eat the plants, and the lady bugs eat the aphids).

Lesson Resources and/or Credit for Adaption:

Whose Garden Is It? By Mary Ann Hoberman

Brother Eagle, Sister Sky by Susan Jeffers

Literature in the Garden A Junior Master Gardener Golden Rays Series – Activity 15 “Buy the Sky and the Web of Life” pg. 69