My name is Cristina Eury. I'm a mom, licensed massage therapist, student herbalist, and sometimes substitute teacher in Gainesville, Florida. Recently, I was asked to cover a 9th grade Cambridge program Biology class at Gainesville High School for a 4-day week due to the early arrival of the teacher's first baby. So in a moment of inspiration, I decided to use "Botany in a Day" and "Shanley's Quest" as a means to introduce botany to the kids and further my own knowledge! I loved your video tutorial and used that to make a worksheet to help guide the students in their note taking. I had a lot of fun creating this unit, many of the students seemed engaged and several commented about how much they enjoyed it. I can envision other public school teachers appreciating having access to these materials and it would make it easier for them to share this precious knowledge. Warmest green wishes from Florida!
Cristina
4-Day Botany Mini Unit Created in January 2017 by Cristina Eury, Gainesville, Florida
Grade Levels: This mini unit was created especially for use with students in ninth grade. It can be used for all junior and high school students.
Day 1: Botany in a Day Video Tutorial
Give a brief introduction to the importance of being able to recognize plants, especially edibles and medicinals. Then show the 46-minute Botany in a Day Tutorial. Provide the Patterns in Plants: A Botany Lesson worksheet for kids to take notes while watching the video. The worksheet key includes notes showing the corresponding time from the video for each family covered as well as related pages from Botany in A Day.
Day 2: Shanleya's Quest
Read from Shanleya's Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99, specifically the pages beginning with "Finding Mint Island" through to "The Aster Archipelago", as there are no page numbers. As it is being read, the kids will add further notes to the Day 1 worksheet. After reading each page, review family details from the key. In part A, details that come from the video are italicized. Most of the details, within the eight plant families, come from Shanleya's Quest. A few details come from Botany in A Day, i.e. latin names and number of species. Part B, part C, and the extra credit details come from the 45-minute video, but most info is also available in Botany in A Day.
Day 3: Plant Walk Day!
Give them the Golden Rules of Wildcrafting. handout. Have them quickly read over it and/or assign for homework. Go for a walk to point out edible & medicinal plants in the surrounding area. Be sure to check out the area ahead of time and research available plants to confidently point out features about the individual plants. In addition or alternately, one can bring plants into the classroom to discuss, further inspect, and possibly taste. Have the kids take notes on the plants discussed.
Mr Elpel suggests: "To improve the experience for the kids, it is best to focus the botany walk on families that have been studied, while avoiding introducing too much new material. Examining other monocots and dicots is good, but without getting distracted by individual names or family names. Basically, I like to keep a class focussed on the core families covered in the book and video to solidify the information presented, rather than muddying the waters with unrelated families."
Remind them to study for the eight plant families, particularly the patterns of each family, monocots vs. dicots, and basic flower structure.
Day 4: Quiz and Review
Allow 5 minutes of study. Then handout the Patterns in Plants Quiz. On the back, have them list 5 plants that were visited on the walk and 2 (out of 8) rules of wildcrafting. Give them about 20 mins to take the quiz. Afterwards have them "trade and grade," while going over answers from the Key. Review the list of plants and rules of wildcrafting for grading. Students can turn in the "Patterns in Plants: A Botany Lesson" worksheet for a homework grade and the quiz for a test grade.
Additional days could be added by having students spending a day after the plant walk, but before the quiz, getting to know individual plants by doing a coloring page or drawing them, perhaps even doing a mini research report on a plant or two. Alternatively, students could be sent out with botany field guides in small groups to photograph and identify plants around campus.
Additional Resources: For high school and university classes, Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification expands on the evolutionary concepts and plant families covered in Shanleya's Quest, covering more than one hundred families of plants found across North America.
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