Trees

Use this slide show to discuss how tree rings record the growth of a tree. Create a timeline of your own life. Begin with a center ring for babyhood and work outward with a new ring for each year of life. Provide details about important events.

Learn about the process of photosynthesis and write a text explaining, in order, how the process works.

Learn about the water cycle and write a text explaining how water cycles through the different phases and the important part that trees play in the water cycle. 

Count the tree rings from a real tree sample. Compare the age of your sample with those of your classmates, and plot the results on a graph. For context, find out what was happening in local, national or world history when your tree grew a certain ring. 

Take a walk around the school and count the total number of trees. Create a pie graph showing the fraction of trees which are deciduous or coniferous compared to the whole.

Trace a leaf onto graph paper and then by counting the squares, identify the area. Halves and thirds of squares will need to be combined together to make whole squares. Make an estimate of the area before using the graph paper. 

Calculate the fraction of trees on the school ground or in the area that are of a particular species. Work with another classroom from a neighboring school, and add your fractional species together. Write a contextual problem to match. Do the same for a subtraction version.

Plants need water and light to live and grow. Examples of observations could include that animals need to take in food, but plants produce their own; the requirement of plants to have light; and that all living things need water.

Plants and animals can change their environment. Examples could include that tree roots can break concrete.

Living things need water, air, and resources from the land. They live in places that have the things they need. Examples of relationships could include that deer eat buds and leaves, and therefore they usually live in forested areas. Plants, animals, and their surroundings make up a system.

Things that people do can affect the world around them. People can reduce their effects on the land, water, air, and other living things.  Examples of human influence on the land could include planting trees after a burn. Designs can be conveyed through sketches, drawings, or physical models. These representations are useful in communicating ideas for a problem’s solutions to other people.

Plants have different parts (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits) that help them survive and grow. Plants also respond to some external inputs. Examples of human problems that can be solved by mimicking plant solutions could include designing protective clothing or equipment by mimicking acorn shells, stabilizing structures by mimicking roots on plants, and keeping out intruders by mimicking thorns on branches.

Plants are very much, but not exactly, like their parents. Individuals of the same kind of plant are recognizable as similar but can also vary in many ways. Examples of patterns could include features plants share. Examples of observations could include that leaves from the same kind of plant are the same shape but can differ in size.

Plants depend on water and light to grow.

Some plants can depend on animals, wind, and water for pollination or to move their seeds around. Designs can be conveyed through sketches, drawings, or physical models.

There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places. Emphasis is on the diversity of living things in each of a variety of different habitats.

Examples of solutions could include different designs of windbreaks to hold back wind, and different designs for using shrubs, grass, and trees to hold back the land.

Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse life cycles.

Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents.  Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information. 

Many characteristics involve both inheritance and environment. The environment affects the traits that an organism develops. Examples of the environment affecting a trait could include that normally tall plants grown with insufficient water are stunted.

Examples of evidence could include needs, characteristics of the organisms, and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitat make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.

Examples of plant structures could include thorns, stems, roots, and colored petals.

Water, ice, wind, living organisms, and gravity break rocks, soils, and sediments into smaller particles and move them around. Living things affect the physical characteristics of their regions. Examples could include a beaver constructing a dam to create a pond or tree roots breaking a rock.

Energy and fuels that are modified from natural sources affect the environment in multiple ways. Some resources are renewable over time, and others are not.  Examples of environmental effects could include biological effects from moving parts, erosion due to deforestation, change of habitat, and pollution.

The energy released from food was once energy from the Sun. The energy was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter from air and water.

Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water. Emphasis is on the idea that plant matter comes mostly from air and water, not from the soil.

Examples of cause and effect relationships could be that plants that have larger thorns than other plants may be less likely to be eaten by predators.

Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there. When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, water distribution, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die.

The food of almost any kind of animal can be traced back to plants. Organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants. Some organisms, such as fungi and bacteria, break down dead organisms (both plants and animals) and therefore operate as “decomposers.” Decomposition eventually restores (recycles) some materials back to the soil.  Matter cycles between the air and soil, and among plants, animals, and microbes as these organisms live and die. Emphasis is on the idea that matter that is not food (air, water, decomposed materials in soil) is changed by plants into matter that is food. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life.

Human activities in agriculture, industry, and everyday life have effects on the land, vegetation, streams, ocean, and air. Individuals and communities can often mitigate these effects through innovation and technology. 

Plants, algae, and many microorganisms use the energy from light to make sugars (food) from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water through the process of photosynthesis, which also releases oxygen. These sugars can be used immediately or stored for growth or later use.

Matter and energy are transferred between producers, consumers, and decomposers as the three groups interact within an ecosystem. Transfers of matter into and out of the physical environment occur at every level. Decomposers recycle nutrients from dead plant matter back to the soil in terrestrial environments. 

Food webs can be broken down into multiple energy pyramids. Concepts should include the 10% rule of energy and biomass transfer between trophic levels and the environment.  Emphasis is on describing the transfer of mass and energy, beginning with producers, moving to primary and secondary consumers, and ending with decomposers.

Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations. Emphasis is on recognizing patterns in data and making warranted inferences about changes in populations, and on evaluating empirical evidence supporting arguments about changes to ecosystems.

Biodiversity describes the variety of species found in Earth’s ecosystems. The completeness or integrity of an ecosystem’s biodiversity is often used as a measure of its health. Changes in biodiversity can influence humans’ resources, such as food, energy, and medicines, as well as ecosystem services that humans rely on—for example, forest ecosystem services could include oxygen production, water purification, carbon absorption, nutrient recycling, and prevention of soil erosion. Examples of design solution constraints could include scientific, economic, and social considerations. There are systematic processes for evaluating solutions with respect to how well they meet the criteria and constraints of a problem.

Water continually cycles among land, ocean, and atmosphere via transpiration, evaporation, condensation, crystallization, percolation, and precipitation, as well as downhill flows on land. Emphasis is on the ways water changes its state as it moves through the multiple pathways of the hydrologic cycle.

Human activities can positively and negatively influence the biosphere, sometimes altering natural habitats and ecosystems. Technology and engineering can potentially help us best manage natural resources as populations increase. Examples of the design process include examining human interactions and designing feasible solutions that promote stewardship. Examples can include water usage,  land usage, and pollution.