Michigan Agriscience Education
For Elementary Students
Grades 3-4
Continuous Gardening Activity
PRE-LAB:
Have students draw a picture of a flower garden. Have them make sure they
include in their picture all requirements for plants to grow. Students can share
their picture and explain their requirements for plants to grow.
Activity 1:
Ask your school if you can have an area to landscape with shrubs, grasses, and
flowering annuals.
MATERIALS:
1. Different flowering bulbs to be planted in the fall
2. You will need enough bulbs for each student to plant a bulb and also one for
them to take home and plant.
3. Several hand digging tools and maybe a spade as well.
4. A good resource—FFA students
Step One
Talk about what a bulb is, how deep and close together bulbs are planted when they
bloom.
Step Two
Let each student take a turn at digging and planting a bulb.
Activity 2:
Give a presentation explaining the uses of plants while showing examples and talk
about related careers in the horticultural field. Include interesting and unusual
plants as well as talk about herb gardening and how plant parts are used especially
to help improve physical ailments.
Home gardening, whether it be vegetables, fruits, nuts, or flowers can be enjoyed
by the entire family. For some, it is an enjoyable and relaxing hobby while others
use the produce as a source of income and making it an agribusiness.
More and more people are interested in rock gardens, roof gardens, water gardens,
flower gardens, flower borders edging the yard, wildflowers or landscaping an area
with trees, shrubs, and flowers to improve the appearance and to attract wildlife
like butterflies and birds.
Activity 3
OBJECTIVE:
1. To demonstrate to students that they can have fun growing plants.
2. To show that raising a vegetable garden or flowers takes a yearly commitment
much like farming.
3. Students will be able to identify types of flowering plants such as annuals,
perennials, and biennials.
4. Identify the parts of a plant
5. To understand food storage in the seed, germination, photosynthesis, and what
is required for the seed to germinate and the plant to grow and produce.
MATERIALS:
1. Several different packages of flower seeds that grow well in your area
2. Potting soil
3. Watering or misting container
4. Commercial planting containers—Use a variety from the store as well as egg
cartons, etc to show kids they can start plants in any kind of container. You do
need to use good potting soil
5. Clear plastic wrap
6. A grow light or a greenhouse or a window with bright light
PROCEDURE:
1. Divide class into groups. It will depend on how much room you have to place your
plants in light and how much money you can spend as to the number in each of your
groups.
2. Put soil in containers. Some students may want to try the mini-pellets to put
their seeds into.
3. Let students select kinds of seeds they want to plant
4. Plant the seeds according to the package instructions
5. Water or mist the dirt. Water from below
6. If you do not have a commercial type container with plastic lid then use the
clear plastic wrap and place over your containers and secure with a rubber band or
tape them in place on a tray.
7. Put plant containers into a greenhouse or under the grow light or in a well-lit
area of your classroom.
8. When seeds emerge from soil, remove the plastic wrap.
9. Water when needed. Use a mixture of liquid plant fertilizer every other time.
10. Depending on the type of container used, plants may need to be transplanted
into larger containers before planted outside.
11. If plants are in your classroom, it will be good to place them outside on warm,
spring days to get them to “harden” to the climate.
12. When all danger of frost is over, plant the plants out into your school’s flower
garden or allow students to take them home.
PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITY:
As students are planting their seeds, they can also make some containers to use to
test what conditions are necessary for seed germination. Place several containers
in the dark, in the light, some with water and some without water, in the cold and in
the warm areas of your room. Make sure that you have controls. Have students
write a hypothesis related to needs of a seed for its germination.
Activity 4:
Take one of your flower seed packets & place the seeds out on a thick layer of
cheesecloth. Have the students count the seeds. Now cover the seeds with more
cheesecloth and moisten. Keep in a warm area. Each day have the students count
how many seeds have germinated (sprouted). Larger seeds are easier to see than
tiny little flower seeds. Alfalfa and radish seeds would work. The Sprout House
Web site tells about the uses of sprouts as food. You could also figure the
percentage of seed germination in the package of seeds you have purchased.
AG CONNECTION:
Also relate the importance of seed germination in farming. A farmer must have
good seed in order to raise a productive crop. If only half the alfalfa seeds sprout,
then he only gets a 50 percent stand on alfalfa in his field. What if only 50 percent
of your soybeans grew? What would the cost be?
Would the farmer have to replant to get more seeds to grow?
http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm1.html
SEED GERMINATION:
A seed is an embryo plant and contains within itself virtually all the materials and
energy to start off a new plant. To get the most from one’s seeds it is needful to
understand a little about their needs, so that just the right conditions can be given
for successful growth.
One of the most usual causes of failures with seed is sowing too deeply; a seed only
has enough food within itself for a limited period of growth and a tiny seed sown
too deeply soon expends that energy and dies before it can reach the surface. Our
seed guide therefore states the optimum depth at which each type of seed should
be sown.
Another common cause is watering. Seeds need a supply of moisture and air in the
soil around them. Keeping the soil too wet drives out the air and the seed quickly
rots, whereas insufficient water causes the tender seedling to dry out and die. We
can thoroughly recommend the Polythene bag method (No. 11) which helps to
overcome this problem. Watering of containers of very small seeds should always
be done from below, allowing the water to creep up until the surface glistens.
http://www.sprouthouse.com/htben.htm
This Web site has health benefits of sprouts.
* Original can be found at Kansas Ag in the Classroom, www.ksagclassroom.org