SCIENCE
Sorting Leaves By Their Artful Design

Submitted by: Janka Cvorovic
From: Bronx, NY
Date Submitted: December 12, 2005

Grade Levels: PreK,K,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

Essential questions: Do leaves effect how we feel? What do leaves tell us? What ways can we sort all the common leaves? How do leaves change color? Do leaves tell the birds or squirrels anything? What is happening when they fall off the trees? What is the same about leaves? What is different? What does their shape tell us? What do we learn from the leaves?

Goal: Students will be able to sort leaves as either Palmate, Pinnate, Parallel or Singles.

Objectives: Students will be able to recognize the difference between the four types of common leaf shapes. They will gain an understanding of the order of nature and changes in form of matter.. They will demonstrate using technology and working in collaboration to compare size similarities and differences. They will see how nature inspires humans to create works of art and build careers.

Aim: is to recognize the four shapes of common leaves.

Activities: for Pre K, K,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and Special Ed
1. Teacher can have students sit in a circle. Discuss how things change over time and use the appropriate Essential questions to motivate students. Teacher could read a book, poem or song to spark interest and awareness of the importance of leaves.

2. The teacher will hold up one type of leaf and pass it around. A magnifying glass can be used. (Social Skills) Each student will take a turn observing and then pass to their neighbor. After all four types are passes around, the teacher will give a stacks of worksheets. *Instruction could be differentiated if student can’t write their own name. Their names could be pre-printed on them and put in proper order or they could handed out by teacher calling their name.

3. The teacher holds up and identifies the shape and students have to tell what shape it is or point to it on the worksheet. Teacher assesses as lesson progresses.

4. The teacher shares the name given to each shape and discusses the special properties. The teacher does this with all the shapes. Upper grades will do more of an inquiry of how the leaf falls off and why the singles stay on all year round.
Pinnate (Oak)is skinny like a feather with lobes. Palmate(Maple) is fat like a palm spread open with lobes. Parallel (Cherry Blossom) is rounded with no lobes and the veins are symmetrical or parallel to each other. Singles(Hemp) are one single vein. Like a needle.
*Upper grades can go discover chloroplasts in the leaf which from the Sun’s electromagnetic radiation convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water into carbohydrates as glucose. Glucose is an energy rich sugar which all cellulose and polymers are made. Energy +CO2 + H20 change to carbohydrate + 02) Hence why the leaves change colors when the sap stops and the spore drys. Singles spores keep producing sap.

5. The students are asked to chose one shape and reproduce the leaf on drawing paper and label the shape. An Inquiry can be done why the shape was chosen. Upper grades can create a song, poem or simple write how they would feel if they were that shape of leaf in autumn. Lower grades can dance to music pretending they are a leaf about to fall. .

6. Capable students can do a web quest to find a poem, song or painting which has the subjects of leaves and then come back and share with the group.
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Strategies: questioning, creating and using cooperative learning, wait time-think-time, and active-listening.

Materials: Specimens of the four types of common leaves. Drawing paper, crayons, pencils, markers, worksheets, magnifying glass, ruler, Lists of other activities, website, book lists, songs and poems.

Assessments: : Quiz, class participation, work samples, group work, web quest results,and oral presentation. ( See rubric).