Long Term Goal Provide authentic engagement opportunities that lead to transformative family learning.
Program and Program Big Idea School Programs
Tulip Journey North – Everyone can be scientists, engineers, and creators.
Age Span|Grade
Third Grade / Title
Tulip Journey North Program
Outreach Program for TPI
Key Words
Observation
Tulip Bulbs
Dissection
Living and Nonliving
Citizen Scientist
Activity Essentials
Science Practices / Observe simple objects and patterns and report their observations.
Make simple predictions and inferences based upon observations.
Use observations to construct a reasonable explanation.
Observation; Asking questions or defining problems; Engaging in argument from evidence; Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Crosscutting Concepts / Demonstrate a sense of curiosity about nature.
Stability, change and curiosity
Core Ideas|Topic / Use Science Process and Thinking Skills
Students will understand that organisms depend on living and nonliving things within their environment.
Intended Learning Outcome #1
Utah State Science Core Standard #2
Overall Concept:
- We are all scientists.
- We need to learn to observe closely.
- What is living and nonliving?
- Introduce yourself and the activity
- Pass out student booklets and mealworm bug boxes
-Sample Statement: “Using the first page in your booklet, let’s see if we can figure out what is in these boxes.”
-Read over the questions on this page with the class.
-Allow the students’ time to investigate the bug boxes and answer the questions in the booklet.
-Don’t give them any directions on how to investigate the mealworms. Let their natural curiosity drive their investigation.
-Encourage the students to answer the questions in the booklet.
-Discuss the questions as a class and then ask what they think is in the box after the students have spent time observing.
-Briefly tell the students about the mealworm lifecycle. Show the picture of the life cycle.
- Collect the mealworm boxes and gather everyone’s attention.
-Write the ideas that the students tell you on the board.
Sample Answers: Asking questions, researching, experimenting, comparing findings, analyzing data, exploring more, making and recording observations.
-Sample Statement: “These are things that scientists do too.”
-Discuss being a scientist.
Sample Statement: “Weren’t you all doing many of these things as you where observing the mealworms. Didn’t you look closely and ask your friends’ questions or share with them what you saw. Did you write or draw what you were wondering about? These are all things a scientist does. So I ask again, who of you are scientists? You are all scientist and you do what scientist do a lot more than you think.”
Teach about Observation and dissect tulip bulbs (30 minutes)
- Sample Statement: “Now we are going to practice being a scientist some more. One of the things a good scientist needs to learn is how to observe closely.”
- Sample Question: “What is observation?”
-“Why do you need to observe closely?”
- Pass out tulip bulbs and have them look at the second page in the handout.
-Give the students time to observe them.
-Sample Question: “What do you think this is?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Is it living or nonliving?”
“What does it make you wonder about?”
“What does it remind you of?”
-After sometime observing and questioning, let the students know it is a tulip bulb. Show them the picture of a tulip.
-Tell about tulips and how they need to be planted in the fall and they come up in the spring.
-Talk about how tulips are Water Smart Plants. Here is some information:
Tulips are one of the easiest flowers you can choose to grow. Plant your bulbs in autumn and forget about them: those are the basic horticultural instructions.
Tulip plant watering is all about minimalism. When you plant your bulbs in autumn, you’re actually doing them a favor by forgetting about them. Tulips require very little water and can easily rot or sprout fungus if they’re left in standing water. When you plant your bulbs, put them in very well drained, preferably dry or sandy soil. Tulip watering needs are basically nonexistent beyond the occasional rain. If you have an irrigation system in your garden, make sure to keep it well away from your tulip bed.
-Pass out placemats, knives and magnifying glasses.
-Show the students how to dissect the tulip bulb symmetrically from tip to base.
-Discuss the parts of the tulip bulb.
Sample Questions: “What is interesting about the tulip bulb? Use your observational skills to discover the tulip bulb. What does it look, smell or feel like?”
-Optional - Draw a diagram of the tulip bulb and its parts together.
Example: scales, basal stem, roots, tunic, flower bud
-Pass out Ziploc bags and have each student put their pieces in the bag to take home later.
Sample Statement: “Scientist share information, so take your dissected tulip bulb home and share it with your family.”
-Collect knives and placemats. Clean up
- Sample Statement: “You can all become better observers if you take time and look closer at the world around you.”
- Class experiment of building a terrarium.
- Show the students the different parts of the terrarium and ask: “Which are living and nonliving things?”
- Discuss what is living and nonliving.
-Once living is something that used to be alive, but now is not. Example: picked apple, fossil and now your dissected tulip bulb.
-Sample Statement: “If you would have planted the bulb, it would have been able to grow into the tulip flower. So it would have done all the things a living thing could do, but now we have cut it apart, it will not grow, so it is not living anymore.”
- Build the terrarium.
-Call up the students’ one at a time and build the terrarium together. Asking is the item living or nonliving before the student places the item into the terrarium.
Layers of the terrarium from the bottom up – stones, soil, seeds, water, pea gravel,2 ornament rock, 3mealworms, and potato slice. Put all this in a clear cup with a lid.
- Sample Questions:
-“What is it that helps living things grow?”
- Sample Statement: “Now you will be able to practice your observational skills and watch this terrarium change. What are some ways that you might think it will change?”
- Give the teacher a “Mealworms & Terrarium Care” page.
Citizen Scientist (10 minutes)
- Sample Statement: “At the beginning I told you that we are here to talk about being a Citizen Scientists. What is a citizen? Are you a citizen? Are you a scientist? So you are a Citizen Scientist. Citizen Scientists work together and share their information. When everyone works together more information can come about.”
- Give the example of the Journey North website.
-Website: (Give the teacher the website card at the beginning and then it will be ready when you need it.)
Steps through the website: Click on the word “Maps” on the left bar
Click on the word “Animation” on the right bar
under North America.
Point out the changes on the web page.
-Sample Statement: “This website was made to track the change in seasons and climate around the globe. They are monitoring the growth of tulips. When the tulip comes up then they know that spring has come to their area. The map shows how spring happens at different times in different places. This website also shows the journey of eagles, hummingbirds, Monarch butterflies and many other things.
-Discuss: “Why do you think scientists have to monitor all these different things?”
-Statement: “Now we are going to go outside and plant tulip bulbs. Your job is to observe their changes and report it. You will be an official citizen scientist.”
Planting Tulip Bulbs (30 minutes)
- Go to garden bed
- Gather students around you.
- Explain that in order to be an official garden you have to follow protocol.
-Plant 6 inches down in the ground.
-Plant with the pointy part up.
- Have each students go to a trowel that is placed in the ground.
- Have each student dig a hole 6 inches deep.
- Student places tulip bulb in ground with pointy tip up.
- Student covers bulb with dirt.
- Return trowels to crate.
- Sample Question: “What do you think will happen next? How long will that take? When it does flower what season is it?”
- Clean up
- Place sign in the garden.
K.U.D.
Know | Understand | Do / Understand observation, predicting what is happening, connecting to personal experience
Preparation:
- Collect all supplies
- Know how to get on the TJN website.
- Put mealworms or one of its lifecycle into each bug box. Enough for one for each student.
- Place terrarium supplies in Ziploc bags. Enough for one for each class.
- Trowels in ground where the students will plant the tulip bulbs.
Prep for school:
- Prepared ground to plant tulips.
- Students have pencils and a place to work.
- Optional: Projector and Smartboard
Terrarium Layers: Place each item in a Ziploc bag and then place all those bags in a gallon size bag to carry it. Layer this in a clear cup with a lid to make the terrarium.
- Bottom – Medium size rocks – 1/3 cup
- Soil – 1 cup
- Grass seed – pinch
- Mix seeds in a little & add a little water
- Very small rocks – 1/8 cup
- Ornament rock – 2
- Potato slice – 1
- Mealworms – 3-5
Material List for Activity Plan
Need to be Purchased:
Item / Amount / Where to PurchaseZiploc bags / 1 per student / Walmart
Potato slice / 1 slice / Walmart
Consumables:
Item / Amount / LocationStudent Journals / 1 per student / MAL Storage
Tulip Bulbs / 2 per student / I dissecting bulb & 1 planting bulb if they are planting
Plastic cup & lid / 1 per class / MAL Storage
1/3 cup rocks – bottom / 1 per class / MAL Storage
1 Cup soil / 1 per class / Mal Storage
Pinch of grass seed / 1 per class / MAL Storage
1/8 cup small rocks - top / 1 per class / MAL Storage
Ornament rock / 2 per class / MAL Storage
Mealworms / 5 per class / MAL Storage
Plastic Bag for tulip bulbs if not planting right them / 1 per class / MAL Storage
MAL Storage:
Item / Amount / Shelf LocationMagnifying glasses / Class set / TJN supplies
Scrap paper / Class set / TJN supplies
Plastic knives / Class set / TJN supplies
Tulip Posters / 2 / 1 showing tulip parts & 1 showing flower
1 mealworm & observation container / 1 per student / TJN supplies
Trowels / 1 per student / TJN supplies
Poster of meal worm life cycle / 1 / TJN supplies
Thanksgiving Point Education Department 2016