This curriculum builds upon many years of educating students in the garden and scales up content across grades and lessons for instructional scaffolding. It is designed as an interactive teaching tool to be co-taught with classroom teachers and garden instructors as leads. Each lesson connects directly to standards: Next Generation Science, Common Core State, Physical Education, and Environmental and Health Education. The concise and easy to-follow lessons are a packed 45 minutes for preschool through fifth grade. Flexibility is important, so some lessons include several activities that teachers can choose from to accommodate their lesson plans. Consistency is also important, so lessons follow themes and structures found in the Curriculum Map. 360 pages.

BCC Bioscience Image Library is a media file repository of images and video clips made available to educators and students in the biological sciences. The resources are created by faculty, staff and students of Berkshire Community College and are licensed under Creative Commons 0. This means all content is free, with no restrictions on how the material may be used, reused, adapted or modified for any purposes, without restriction under copyright or database law.

This project was partially funded by a $20,000,000 grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, Grant # TC-26450-14-60-A-25. The product was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The U.S. Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied, with respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership.

If you have any questions contact professor Faye Reynolds at: freynold@berkshirecc.edu

Developed for second grade. Students will: use their sense of touch and sight to discover differences between several types of seeds; discuss why seeds come in different shapes and sizes; make connections between art and science; discuss the growth process of a seed; discuss how different seeds are used in different products.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

This activity is an in class lab where students will compare different acid solutions on seed germination and growth.

Our three friends are inspired by seeds floating on the wind. Afterwards do a whirligig craft.

This activity is an indoor lab investigation where students compare and contrast different growing environments for a lima bean seed and discover the optimal conditions needed for growth.

This article highlights hands-on or multimedia lesson plans about plant structures, growth and development, seed production, and dispersal. Science lessons are paired with suggested literacy lesson plans. All lessons are aligned to national standards.

This lesson plan explains how seeds can be dispersed, describes seed adaptations to ensure dispersal and explain the importance of this process.

This lesson plan explains how seeds can be dispersed, describes seed adaptations to ensure dispersal and explain the importance of this process.

What are the potential uses of soybeans after they have been processed? In this lesson, students will learn about the composition of an average soybean seed and then use soy wax flakes to make their own lip balm. 

An interactive lesson plan that entails reading the book, "A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds, and the planting of a fruit and a flower as a learning comparison. By the end of the lesson students should be able to understand what seeds are and that if two objects have a seed than they are most likely related; such as fruit and flowers.

In this lesson, students will investigate seeds and the process of seeds growing to become the food we eat. Includes activity instructions, extension activities, songs, and a vocabulary list.

NGSS: Partially meets 2-LS2-1, Extension activities meet 4-LS1-1, 5-LS-1

Common Core: W.2.7, W.2.8, Extension activities meet MD.K, MD.1, MD.2.1, MD.3.3, MD, 4.4, MD.5

Social Sciences: 3.12, 4.12

Time: 45 minutes

Materials: "Seed, Soil, Sun" or other book about seed germination and plant growth, clear plastic cups, paper cups, paper towels, seeds, water

Over the course of three sessions, students act as agricultural engineers and learn about the sustainable pest control technique known as soil biosolarization in which organic waste is used to help eliminate pests during soil solarization instead of using toxic compounds like pesticides and fumigants. Student teams prepare seed starter pots using a source of microorganisms (soil or compost) and “organic waste” (such as oatmeal, a source of carbon for the microorganisms). They plant seeds (representing weed seeds) in the pots, add water and cover them with plastic wrap. At experiment end, students count the weed seedlings and assess the efficacy of the soil biosolarization technique in inactivating the weed seeds. An experiment-guiding handout and pre/post quizzes are provided.

STUDENT ACTIVITY - 2nd Grade: This is a distance-learning lesson students can complete at home.Students will conduct a simple experiment to see if plants need sunlight and water to grow.This activity was created by Out Teach (out-teach.org), a nonprofit providing outdoor experiential learning to transform Science education for students in under-served communities.