In this lesson, students are introduced to Budburst and the curriculum’s driving question: Why do different plants flower at different times? (See the lesson outline for potential modifications of this question). They take steps towards collecting Budburst data by learning how to identify the plant they will observe. They are also introduced to seasonal plant bingo, which can be used throughout the curriculum to encourage students to carefully observe the plants in their environment.

In this lesson, students learn more about phenology, or the study of the timing of seasonal life events in plants and animals. They initially draw on their own experiences to create a phenology wheel that depicts seasonal changes that they have noticed. They then learn more about how and why plants change across the seasons by making directed observations and reading/interpreting two short texts. They begin to think about how seasonal changes in plants affect other living things.

This lesson consists of two main sections. In Part 1, students review the parts of a flowering plant and their functions. In Part 2, students learn about life cycles and model the life cycle of a flowering plant. They compare and contrast a plant life cycle to a fox’s life cycle to highlight similarities and differences. Finally, they make connections between plant life cycle events and phenology through discussion.

In this lesson, students build a class food web out of a series of food chains. They think about how various components in their food web interact and learn that all energy in the food web eventually leads back to producers and finally the sun. This lesson is catered towards 5th grade but can be implemented at other grade levels.

This lesson consists of a series of suggestions and proposed activities that can help you and your students prepare for and complete Budburst data collection. They can be completed in succession or broken up and completed amongst earlier lessons in the curriculum. Ultimately, data collection will need to be structured to fit your own unique learning situation.

After you review Budburst data submission forms and protocols, students can begin to collect data. You can have students collect and submit data on their study plant once, or collect data for a longer period of time (suggested: 1-2 times a week for at least 1 month). Students will benefit from longer observation periods by seeing their plant go through multiple phenophases. The length of data collection may determine where in the curriculum you want to place this lesson.

In this lesson, students will practice creating and interpreting simple graphs to make sense of real-world (Budburst) data. They will use this data to help them make and justify claims about when plants bloom (or fruit, change leaf color, etc).

During the course of this lesson, students will engage in data visualization exerecises focused on 3 data sets:

1. Class Budburst data

2. Data comparing bloom times of two different species

3. Data comparing lilac bloom times in different geographic regions

Through these exercises, they will the explore the timing of seasonal changes in plants and some of the factors that influence this timing. They will also practice posing new research questions and developing experiments that would deepen their understanding of the curriculum's driving question: "Why do different plants bloom (or fruit, change leaf color, etc) at different times?"

This lesson is coming soon. In the meantime, please email sjones@chicagobotanic.org if you would like your students to meet a Budburst scientist virtually.

Students plan and conduct an experiment to test how mini greenhouses, which increase temperature and moisture, affect plant growth. They connect this to the phenomenon that many plants begin their life cycle or grow new parts in the spring.

*This activity was created for partner schools with access to our remote learning kits but can easily be adapted to classrooms with access to similar materials. Our kits included everything students need to grow two basil plants and conduct a mini greenhouse experiment. Specifically, each student received at least: one basil seed packet, two 3 inch*3inch Jiffy Peat Pots, one plastic cup with a 3inch diamter at the top, and four 50mm Jiffy Peat soil pellets (only 2 pellets were necessary).