With
a little help from parents, garden clubs or community youth
group volunteers (4-H or FFA), your class could begin a fine
annual tradition and establish an outdoor learning laboratory
that's both a fun and educational extension of your classroom
instruction in the spring and fall.
The kindergarten discovery garden can start very early in
the spring with instructional activities centered around various
means of plant propagation: starting plants from seed, cuttings,
bulbs, tubers, etc. One popular theme for your garden would
be to create a "living fort," where popcorn forms
the walls, sunflowers can serve as "lookouts" and
beanpole tepees offer shelter for your "settlers."
Within the compound, various plots can be seeded to grow plants
and plant materials you'll need for classroom instruction.
Plant a small plot of hybrid corn seed and soybean seed to
show students what these important Iowa commodities look like
at various stages of growth. Show the class The Corn Factory
and Once Upon a Soybean videos. You also can use them to distinguish
between monocots (corn) and dicots (soybeans) in terms of
plant structure. Monocots and dicots are the two subclasses
of the angiosperm class of plants—by far the most abundant
class of plants on earth, with more than 235,000 species.
With living plant material and seed your class can compare
the differences between the embryos, stems, leaves, and root
systems of these representatives otmonocot and dicot plants.
You also can study the harmonious nature of some plants that
work together to grow food. Pole beans and soybeans are legumes
that actually fix nitrogen from the air through special nodules
in their root systems. These nodules not only provide an important
nutrient for the legume-nitrogen-but also produce extra nitrogen
which stays in the soil after the crop is harvested, to the
benefit of subsequent crops, such as corn. Hence, an explanation
of why Iowa farmers often use crop rotations between soybean
and corn crops to "harvest" this remaining nitrogen
and reduce their use of chemical fertilizers.
Popcorn and sunflowers also provide your class with the opportunity
to "grow their own snacks." Just seeing how long
it takes to grow any food can instill a deep appreciation
for the role farmers and food processors play in producing
and preparing food.
