Introduction to Second Grade Life Science -Plant Growth

-Next Generation Science Standard* 2-LS2-1

This Second Grade Life Science -Plant Growth project is a great way to get your students to learn how to record scientific data and also appreciate where food comes from.  Even though we usually compost our waste, it is fun to see what you can grow from your vegetable stumps.  Two of our Teachers Pay Teachers lessons that would complement this one nicely are Worm Composting and Gardening.

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Materials List for Second Grade Life Science -Plant Growth

-4 small, shallow bowls
-2 stumps of celery
-2 bunches of green onion stumps
-stump of romaine lettuce (optional)
-water
–Second Grade Life Science Plant Growth Lesson

Step 1: Download the Second Grade Life Science Plant Growth Lesson and complete the worksheets

Here are sample worksheets from our lesson:

 

To cover the NGSS* standard for this lesson, you are going to have to complete two experiments.  The standard states that the student should “

[p]lan and conduct an investigation to determine if plants need sunlight and water to grow, test one variable at a time.”

Step 2: Set up your experiments

Set up your green onion stumps in water in the dark and another put another set of green onion stumps in water in the light.

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Set up one of your celery stumps in water in sunlight and set up the other celery stump in a dry bowl in the sunlight.

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We did not have any extra stumps for our project, we just put them in the sunlight.  When you set up your experiments, you have to do them separately.  You cannot put the celery in the dark and with no water, for example, because if there is no growth, you will not know if it is from the lack of light, water or both.

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Cover your stumps with water and change the water every other day or so so it doesn’t get all funky and slimy.

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Step 3: Record your data on the data table

Record the growth of your stumps in the light and dark and in the water and dry bowl for 7 days.  Again, this is our growth in sunlight only because we didn’t have stumps to put in the dark.

Here you can see some growth in the green onions but none in the celery.

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Still no celery growth but a lot of green onion growth!

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We almost gave up on the celery but we are finally seeing some growth around day 5. Yay!

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Step 4 (optional): You can do this with other stumps as well, such as romaine lettuce or probably even iceberg lettuce and then plant all the stumps in your garden

We completed this project in January, I would like to try to keep the stumps going and transplant them to bigger pots with soil and then plant them in our garden in the spring.  If you try transplanting your stumps, let us know how it went in the comments below!

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Step 5: Complete the assessment for this lesson

Here is a sample from our assessment:

 

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

*”Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is a registered trademark of Achieve. Neither Achieve nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.”