If a Work of Art Is Faithful to the World Around Us It Is

The Plants Around Us: A Science and Art Lesson

EducationWorld is pleased to present this lesson shared by the Go to Know Program, which inspires youth to detect the natural world by providing innovative programs, resources and events. The original lesson plan was developed in consultation with acclaimed artist and naturalist Robert Bateman and scientific discipline consultants from the California Department of Instruction. The lesson appears on the Become to Know Programme'due south Best Practices Resources Page, which provides teachers and parents with complimentary, cutting-border lesson plans, videos and interactive activities designed to connect children with nature through art, music, drama, writing, photography, video and nature journaling. Observe more information, including a big selection of lesson plans, here.

Run across some other Get to Know lesson on EdWorld: Sustainable Products, Consumer Responsibility.

Subjects

Scientific discipline
--Science as Inquiry
--Life Science
Fine Arts
--Visual Arts

Form

4-12

Brief Description

Students get to know one or two plant species past reproducing them equally works of art.

Objectives

Students will

• Learn the proper name of one or more plants.
• Describe or describe a establish, pointing out features that distinguish the species and private establish from others.

Keywords

Science, art, spring, plants, botany, nature, outdoors, contour drawing

Materials Needed

• Drawing paper or sketch volume
• Pencil or pen
• Local plant guides with pictures
• Access to the schoolyard or a nearby park

Lesson Plan

Introduction
In this activity, your students will be focusing on getting to know i or two plant species by reproducing them as works of art. Youth can acquire to see item that would otherwise escape their attending by focusing and recording the characteristics that distinguish one found from others. As your students work on this activity, it is important that they learn the name of the plant they are drawing, and that they utilise the opportunity to spot clues well-nigh the life history of each institute – such as where it grows, what animals depend on it for nutrient, whether it is a perennial, has a woody stalk, and other features.

Prior cognition
What do your students know almost plants? Exam their comprehension with basic questions to come across what level of agreement and appreciation they have of plants prior to going outdoors to depict them.

Hither are some questions to assist you appraise your students' prior cognition:

1. What is the largest plant you can think of? Trees. (Students may remember that plants are herbaceous, and may non include trees inside the plant category.)
2. What are the smallest plants y'all know of? Single-celled algae. (Students may not know that many microorganisms are plants.)
3. Tin can yous proper noun some plants that might take been function of your breakfast or lunch today? (Students may identify fruits, or vegetables like celery or lettuce equally plants, but may not call up of grains, which are the main ingredient in bread.)
4. What makes plants different from animals? Animals can move, plants can't; animals must consume constitute textile or other animals equally food, whereas plants can make their own food using sunlight, water, and air (carbon dioxide). Animals' cells lack a stiff prison cell wall, whereas plant cells take a rigid prison cell wall made of cellulose.

Introduce contour drawing
The perception of shape is a complex neurological process that is fundamental to how nosotros brand sense out of what nosotros see. Together with color, location, and other cues, we use shape to classify objects in our world. Learning how to see the nuances hidden in shapes takes concentration and practice, though, and contour drawing is a wonderful way to hone this skill. The beauty of contour drawing is that it allows us to focus on i aspect of a subject, namely its shape. It lets the observer focus exclusively on the structure and outline of the subject, which helps to reveal to the observer subtle details that make the subject distinctive.

How information technology's done
Profile drawing is done by moving your pen or pencil very slowly, using simple continuous lines to capture the nuances that give an object its distinctiveness. It encourages the artist to draw blindly every bit much as possible, by having them focus more on the subject and non on the newspaper and letting the hand practice the work while the eye searches for details on the subject field. Ultimately, the most of import outcome from contour drawing is not what appears on the paper, but what happens within the head: it is all virtually deeper appreciation you proceeds when you concentrate on shape and details of something as you draw its shape on paper.

Procedure
It is of import that each student have his or her own materials and that they endeavor this as a solo exercise.

Introduce the idea of plants by asking your students what a plant is, and how it differs from other kinds of living things. Be sure they understand that plants are essential to life in that they use sunlight to make oxygen, and are the source of all of our food, straight or indirectly. If necessary, go over some details of plant basics earlier going out to depict and identify private plants. (Come across Get to Know Plants: Background Information, beneath.)

Explicate the purpose of the activity: To go to know only one institute by drawing only its shape. The idea is that plants tin can ordinarily be identified by their shape, even if y'all practice not know their colour, where they grow, or other details.

Explicate the cartoon process to your students:

1. Notice a unmarried institute. It can be grass, moss, a flower, tree, or shrub, or even only a part of a found. Look for something that y'all observe interesting.
2. Utilise the pen or pencil to describe the constitute, moving the pencil very slowly. By going tedious, y'all volition have time to follow the shape of your institute more accurately.
3. Do not add shading or colour. You are to employ simply simple lines to capture the shape of the plant.
4. Draw but what you see: exercise non add together details that are not at that place, and do not omit details that you think will detract from the image. For instance, if yous are drawing some leaves and one looks bug-eaten, describe them that style.
5. Your drawing does non need to be artistic or cute. We are simply trying to capture the shape of the plant, non create a piece of finished artwork.
6. Exercise not worry about what others are drawing or how well. Information technology is merely of import that you lot see the shape of the plant, and make some lines on your paper that show its shape and some of its special features.
7. Pay special attention to how the leaves or other parts are joined to the stem, the shape of edges, whether they are smooth or jagged, if there is insect impairment, and other interesting details. If you've constitute a flower, depict in its parts, counting them to make sure you take the correct number.
8. Add some observations and notes. Next to your cartoon, feel free to write down feelings, features, or other observations that will help you remember this plant. If you know its name, make a note of that too. Record things you meet on this constitute that make information technology unique, such every bit if an insect comes to it while yous are in that location, or something interesting about where information technology is growing.
9. Plant identification: During or afterward your students' drawings are made, you should take them place their plants. Pass out copies of diverse institute books and let them page through them to identify the plants they are drawing. If they cannot discover the plant'due south name, let them know that they should be able to capture plenty data on their page and so that someone with wild institute expertise tin can help them identify it afterward.

Indoor pick
If y'all are unable to get outside to do this activity, you lot can hands bring plants into the classroom for your students. Laissez passer around blossoms from a bouquet, potted houseplants, or even dried plants.

Tips and enrichment

• You lot may need to set up your students with a bit of indoor practice. It can exist surprisingly difficult to consciously look for and record shapes or outlines, especially if this is the first time your students have done this kind of work. Before taking your class outside, have them try cartoon the outline of a leaf or some other shape, just to help them get the idea of contour drawing.
• Emphasize the demand to slow down. This is of import. By moving the pencil very slowly and deliberately, your students will be more able to capture lilliputian details that brand each plant special, and volition be able to do and so more accurately.
• If you accept done this activity outside, ask your students if they can find their original subjects a 24-hour interval or two later on. Ask them to find the verbal spot where they sat, and the original plant they drew. Get them to written report on what changes may take accept place: was the plant still at that place, or was it gone? Had it changed in some way? If and then, what might have happened to it?
• Practise true "blind" profile drawing past having the students not be allowed to look at their paper while drawing the object. Too, try drawing with blindfolds on by experience and/or memory.
  

Get To Know Plants: Background Information

What are plants, anyhow? What practise you lot remember of when someone asks what a plant is? A potted house-found? A garden bloom?

You would be right, of class. But plants are much more than this. Basically, plants are living organisms that make their ain food using simply sunlight, water and air. Plants come in an amazing range of sizes and shapes. Some are microscopic, and others are over 300 feet tall and are amongst the largest organisms on the planet. They are constitute in all kinds of habitats, from open oceans to plains and mountains.

The thing most plants have in common is their ability to make their own nutrient. The nutrient they make is a sugar called glucose, usually made in the leaves. They do this through photosynthesis—a complex process that uses sunlight to make the glucose out of water and carbon dioxide, which the plant gets from the soil and air. The process happens within leaf cells in special parts called chloroplasts. If you lot run into chloroplasts in a microscope, they appear dark green. This is because of a green-colored chemical called chlorophyll, the chemical that lets plants blot useful energy from sunlight.

Another matter most plants have in common is something called cellulose. Cellulose is a tough fiber made from glucose. It stiffens the cells of plant tissues, making them stiff enough to stand upwards under their ain weight. Cellulose, and some other substance called lignin, is the main ingredients of wood, the material that lets trees abound tall. Nosotros use wood as a construction textile, and nosotros extract cellulose from information technology to brand paper.

Kinds of plants
When you think of a constitute, you normally think of something that has leaves, stems, roots, flowers, etc. These are called vascular plants. "Vascular" refers to the system of thin tubes that carry water from the roots to the leaves, and sugars from the leaves to the stems and roots. Nearly of the plants we are familiar with are of this type. Flowering plants, shrubs, copse, ferns, vegetables and grasses would fit this category.

Vascular types of plants can fifty-fifty be found in harsh desert conditions. The cactus, fume tree and ocotillo, but to proper noun a few, have learned to adapt to the farthermost cold and hot temperatures, and the lack of moisture; the needles on a cactus, for instance, assistance shade the plants from too much sun and help keep the cactus cool past interim like the fins on a radiator into the air. The desert actually comes alive with plants subsequently significant rainfalls, when hundreds of wildflowers make the desert floor an exhibition of bright colors.

In addition to vascular plants, some plants are unmarried-celled organisms that are as well small to come across individually without a microscope. These are chosen algae. You lot tin can find algae in lakes, rivers, and oceans, where they course easily seen colonies. Sometimes they become so plentiful that they pollute the h2o they grown in.

Another classification of plant that is mutual but often disregarded is moss and its relatives. These plants take no vascular tissues (veins), and simply absorb water through their tiny leaves. Without stiff stems, these plants cannot abound very large, and so we find them on the soil, and on logs and other surfaces, sometimes in dense colonies.

How plants help us
Anybody knows plants are important to us equally food. Either nosotros eat plants, or nosotros swallow beef or other meats from animals that ate plants. The plants we utilize every bit food are more often than not grains (seeds from diverse kinds of cultivated grasses such equally oats and wheat), fruits, and vegetables such as celery and potatoes.

There are additional ways plants assist us that are not so obvious. Natural forests, meadows, prairies, and other habitats provide the states with clean water and air, and have the power to soak up some of the wastes we produce. Plant-filled ecosystems are part of the biosphere, making food and creating habitats for all other life forms on our planet, including us.

This is why information technology is so crucial that we have care of the plants around us, because they are then important to the style we live, to our economy, and to the animals that depend on them for food and shelter.

National Standards

Science
Grades M-4
NS.M-4.ane Scientific discipline as Research
NS.One thousand-4.3 Life Science- Characteristics of organisms, life cycles of organisms, organisms and environments

Grades v-8
NS.5-8.1 Science every bit Enquiry
NS.5-8.3 Life Scientific discipline - Structure and function in living systems, multifariousness and adaptations of organisms

Fine Arts
Visual Arts
Grades K-four
NA-VA.K-4.ane Understanding and Applying Media, Techniques, and Processes
NA-VA.Grand-4.2 Using Knowledge of Structures and Functions

Grades 5-8
NA-VA.v-8.1 Understanding and Applying Media, Techniques, and Processes
NA-VA.5-8.2 Using Cognition of Structures and Functions

This lesson as well conforms to Environmental Principles and Concepts laid out by California's Education and Environment Initiative, and correlated with California Science Standards.

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