(Pictured: First graders at Muse Elementary went outside to expanded their knowledge About the environment in their Seed Scatter Geodes lesson.)
Mrs. Bileck’s first grade class at Muse Elementary class set the stage on Science by reading Seed Scatter, a title in their new Geodes series. Before and during reading, the students shared their questions, connections, and things they still wondered about at the conclusion of the text selection. These student centered questions were placed on a notecard and tacked up to the great "WALL OF WONDER"!
This "Wall of Wonder" set the stage as these excited learners began to answer as many of the student generated questions as possible using prior knowledge, obtaining answers from peers, teachers, family members and even going to the challenge of looking it up! The book, Seed Scatter seamlessly crossed curriculum to integrate into the Science curriculum with studies surrounding plants and organisms. What a fun and engaging marriage of two concepts! Student excitement has grown according to Mrs. Bileck,
"Student excitement has been tremendous. Discussion, engagement, and conversations have been at all time high as the learning around plants using wind to disperse seeds takes root. Student generated discussions on whether all plants use the same methods led our group to begin researching alternative methods observed in nature for seed scattering. These methods included water, animals, humans and even explosions in order to scatter seeds! Students are as enthusiastic as they are intrigued learning about the how and why plants use a variety of methods to scatter their seeds throughout the environment."
Seed models provide a hands-on approach to taking the learning from abstract to real life. The class made several models of seeds (maple, rain, Koa) and even role-played trees to see how different plants use different casings to help seeds glide, float, and spiral in the wind. Mrs. Bileck said students even went outside to conduct experiments,
"It’s been no wonder that we are also seamlessly embedding new and rich vocabulary into this amazing topic as well! The student models made their way outside for a live experiment to see if the wind would scatter one model further than another! The students ended their experiment on seed scattering with a "grand finale" exploding Touch-Me-Not seed. The students placed bird seed inside a balloon and blew it up to create pressure. Once enough pressure was applied, we popped the balloon and watched the seeds scatter in all different directions! It was a blast!"
Mrs. Bileck said their Seed Scatter Geodes lesson concluded with students observing four different seeds in the classroom using all four senses and ultimately planting the seeds to begin watching how a plant actually forms over time. The entire class returned to the “WALL OF WONDER” and one by one notecards were pulled down and each and every question was able to be answered. Mrs. Bileck said the most impactful and memorable moment was watching all the faces and expressions of the first grade students as they realized everything that they ate came from a seed - including candy! There is always something more to wonder about.
Thanks to Mrs. Bileck for capturing this exciting lesson at Muse Elementary in the photos below!