Watching Our Garden Grow

Watching Our Garden Grow is a multimedia-integrated content area unit plan.  The basis of the lesson is to use multimedia, projects, and related materials to teach students about plant life, the environment, and human effects on nature through gardening. The lesson can be adapted to integrate Common Core standards into content areas such as:

Language Arts (vocabulary, reading comprehension, fluency, writing)
Science (Ecosystems, Earth-life sciences, scientific data collection)
Art (media, composition)
 ... and so much more!

Standards Addressed by Unit:

Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (Common Core) 

1. Range of Writing

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

2. Key Ideas and Details

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

3. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 2–3 text complexity band independently and proficiently. 

(Common Core Standards Initiative, 2013)

Next Generation Science Standards addressed by this Unit:

1. Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their Environment
Students who demonstrate understanding can:

• K-LS1- 1.Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals(including humans)need to survive. 
•  K-ESS2- 2. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals(including humans)can change the environment to meet their needs. 
• K-ESS3- 1. Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans)and the places they live. 
• K-ESS3 - 3. Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and /or other living things in the local environment . 

• 2 - LS2 - 1. Plan and conduct an investigation to determine if plants need sunlight and water to grow.  
• 2 - LS2 - 2. Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.
• 2 - LS4 - 1. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.  

(NSTA, 2013)