Washington Native Plant Society: Education Activities for Third Grade

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Education Activities for Third Grade

Theme: Investigating native seeds

Activity	Description	Materials (PDF)
Giving Space	Students learn about the habitat component of ‘space’ for wildlife, and apply this understanding as they gain skills for giving personal space to each other, plants, and wildlife while working and studying in habitat areas.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Images
Journal the Seasons	Students learn about differences between the seasons and begin journaling their observations about changes in plants, animals and weather that describe the seasons. This activity provides an opportunity for students to apply ‘giving space’ to each other by finding a place in the habitat restoration to study.	Q&E Activity Images Journal Cycle
Seeds of All Kinds Sort	Students learn about the life cycle of the bigleaf maple seed which is found in a winged ‘samara’. They observe other different native plant seed types and discover the actual seeds in berries, capsules, nuts, seed-heads, samaras and cones.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Seed Cycle Poster Overlay Master Organizer
Seeds of all Kinds Hunt	Students go into the habitat area and use a scavenger hunt form to locate seeds based on their characteristics. The habitat area is set up in advance to help lead students to a variety of seeds that match these characteristics.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Clues
Flowers to Seeds	Students learn about and observe how flowers become seeds on different native plants. Students find at least one plant in the habitat area that shows evidence of a flower becoming a seed, then draw and label it. Students use a graphic organizer to draw the life cycle of a seed.	Q&E Activity Images
Seed Dispersal Sort	Students learn how and why seeds disperse for germination. Students observe and study different types of seeds and use a graphic organizer to sort seeds into dispersal types. This activity is followed by the Seed Dispersal Hunt activity.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Master
Seed Dispersal Hunt	Students visit the habitat area and use a scavenger hunt form to identify the seed dispersal types of six different seeds. Students consider reasons how seed dispersal types are important for plant survival.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Seed Hunt
Growing Native Seeds	Students propagate native plant seeds using techniques that replicate natural seasonal dispersal of the seed. The seedlings can be used for the Plant Growth Monitoring activity and for stewardship activities such as enhancement plantings, fundraisers, or donations to other restoration projects and nurseries. These native seedlings offer a real world comparison to the hybridized rapid-cycling Wisconsin Fast Plants used in activities for the ‘Plant Growth and Development’ science kit.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do
Plant Growth Monitoring	Students conduct growth monitoring activities using seedlings propagated in the Growing Native Seeds activity, or seedlings and young plants occurring in the habitat area. Students read and record soil and air temperatures using thermometers, and plant height using rulers. This information is used to create line graphs that show the relationship between these conditions and plant growth.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Record Chart
Seeds for Wildlife	Students learn that wildlife, such as birds, use seeds for food. Students consider beak adaptations for feeding on certain types of seeds. They then build small feeding stations for wildlife using native plant seeds and place them in the garden and make wildlife observations.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Images
Seeds for People	Students participate in creating a snack plate of edible seeds from native plants and share in eating these foods, while gaining an appreciation of their value to people. Students identify some of the plants that provide these foods. This serves as a culmination activity for students studying native seeds.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Images

The native plant education materials provided on this page were developed by Starflower Foundation.