ingridscience

Visit a forest, park or other area with native plants. Teach students the native plants (and animals) for the area.

Scavenger hunt:
Clip one copy of each card to its respective plant before the lesson.
At the lesson, give each student a card, ask them to find the same card pegged to a native plant.
They can stack the cards and peg them together, before getting another card, or helping others find theirs.

Bingo:
Give students bingo boards (each a little different from each other). Students call Bingo! when they have found all the plants on their sheet.

iSpy:
iSpy cards can be the same for each student, and the group can work together to spy each of the plants.

Optional discussion on how native plants are used by Indigenous cultures:
fern: young leaves for food (called fiddleheads - look for them in your food market)
red flowering currant: berries for food
salmonberry berries: for food
salal: berries for food, leaves for a cooking flavour
skunk cabbage: leaves for lining berry baskets
cattail: leaves woven into mats and seeds for pillows and wound dressings
moss: for bedding and pillows
iris: leaves braided into snares for catching large animal prey
fir tree: wood for fuel, and for making spear handles and spoons and other tools
cedar tree: wood for canoes, houses, totem poles, arrow shafts as well as fuel; cedar bark for baskets, rope, mats and woven with wool for clothes; roots for baskets and ropes.

Hand out Doulas fir cones to look at and retell Indigenous story about Douglas Fir cones:
Long, long ago there lived a mouse in the forest. The mouse was fearful all day and all night, for the sly fox always tried to catch him and eat up him. The mouse was very clever and was able to hide from the fox for a long, long time. But one day, he let his attention wander, and before he knew it, the fox was right there! The mouse was very scared and ran off as fast as he could. But he knew the fox was faster, so frantically he searched for a place to hide. He spied a cone that he thought was big enough to hide him, so he scurried inside. Well, he was hidden well enough that the fox couldn't find him, but really the cone was too small. And to this day, you can see the hind legs and the tail of the mouse sticking out from the Douglas-fir cone, where he is STILL hiding from the fox!
Students can find their own Douglas fir cones until time to go back to school.

Bog information:
Bogs are a valuable natural resource. They store water, which prevents flooding by slowing the water entering streams and rivers. They are a carbon sink, as the plants in them do not decay. They are natural filters.
Bogs have unique ecosystems - they are low oxygen and acidic - bog plants are adapted to live in this environment.

Introduction: the chemistry of the stream water determines how much life can grow in it. First we will measure how much oxygen is in the water (http://www.lamotte.com/pages/common/pdf/instruct/5963.pdf). Like us, the living things in the stream need oxygen. We breathe oxygen in from the air. Animals that live in the water use oxygen that is dissolved in the water. (http://tellus.ssec.wisc.edu/outreach/teach/ideas/kotoski/Minifact_Sheet…). Second, we will measure the pH of the water (or how acidic it is). If the water is too acidic (or too much in the other direction, too alkaline) living things will die (http://tellus.ssec.wisc.edu/outreach/teach/ideas/kotoski/Minifact_Sheet…).

Within a designated area, students explore the stream to find landmarks (e.g. waterfall, bridge), then choose a part of the stream that they would like to sample. First they collect water in a tube for dissolved oxygen testing, and then collect the tablets from an adult. While these tablets are dissolving, they can collect a second tube of water from the same place for pH testing, and then get a drop of pH indicator solution.
Students record their pH and their dissolved oxygen level for the area of the stream that they tested. Students can draw a map of the stream, with landmarks, and mark where they sampled from. They can also mark the location and readings obtained by a friend.
When all the students have made their measurements, the group hears all the readings and then discusses how healthy the stream is for living things. (In this class: dissolved oxygen was 4ppm -sufficient for some, but not all, life; pH varied from 6.5 to 7.5 - able to support a variety of living things).

Extension of experiments on dissolved oxygen - use the tablets to measure the dissolved oxygen in a sample of pond water, and track the reduction in dissolved oxygen as it is used by the living things in the pond water (experiment suggestions in ref 4)

Find a good collection site at the pond. Around the base of plants, rather than open water, tends to be more fruitful.
Fill a large tray with pond water for each student group.
Using a fine net, students scoop from the pond or stream near to plants then invert the net into the large tray.

Alternatively, the teacher collects pond water samples and brings them into the classroom in white tubs (so that the contents can be seen easily).

Students transfer organisms they find in the large tray to smaller trays with a pipette, then use the magnifiers to look at them closely.
Students are assisted in identifying the pond invertebrates they find.

Try these web pages for identification keys:
For Daphnia and similar species, cyclops and shrimp: Page 46 of https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Brine-Shrim… Daphnia photo: https://www.britannica.com/animal/water-flea
For most species you will find: https://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/ Make sure you click on "arthropods" as you'll find a lot of these, and then "other insect stages" for larger specimens.

Organisms students with me have found:
At Central Park pond, we identified Cyclops, freshwater shrimp, worms and Daphnia. In our back yard pond we identified Daphnia, leeches, caddisfly larvae, cyclops, worms, and sometimes stentor. At Jericho we identified Daphnia, water beetles, water boatmen, worms and shrimp. At Trout Lake we found Daphnia, worms, mosquito larvae, water mites, mayfly nymphs or something similar. Water plants and seeds also caught may be identified.

Gather as a group and add each organism found to a white board, then with discussion, link who eats who to form a food web.
Simply put, pond organisms eat anything smaller than them. Add microscopic bacteria and algae, eaten by the tiny pond organisms.
Add other animals and plants seen around the pond.
Optional: play bird sounds for local birds noticed.

Out in the schoolyard/park/beach, give each pair or group of students a square of pipe cleaners. Ask them to place the square on the ground in any place they wish.
Tell students that scientists taking surveys will have a larger quadrat of 1m by 1m and will take all day to take their survey. They do not choose where to place their quadrats, but at regular distances along a transect line (a straight line through the ecosystem being studied).

Students draw a square in their notebooks/on a worksheet, and map out what they see in their square. They draw the shapes of rocks/plants/seaweed, and the location of all the other living things they can find. Help students identify species of seaweed, animals or plants using field guides.
Alternatively, for mapping skills, give the students an aerial map of the area. They draw where their square is, as well as mapping the things they find in their square. (See last photo.)
At the side of their square drawing, students can use a Key to write out the species names, with a letter abbreviation, which can be used to label the map e.g. R=rockweed, P=plantain.

Students should try to find every living thing in the square, and may need teaching to slow down and look ever more closely. There is always one more thing to find, and given time students will notice things that they did not see to start.

Gather as a group and combine data to write all the living things that they have found on a board.
Then ask students who eats who in this habitat. Link the living things with arrows, to build up food chains and eventually a food web. Add in bacteria, plankton and other living things too small to see, in order to feed the lowest levels of the food web. Also add in the sun, which provides energy to the producers, such as plants, seaweed and other algae.
From the few living things each student found, they can see how they are part of a much greater food web and ecosystem.