National Tree Week
Do you know your Ash from your Elder? Use the tree identification key to help you identify trees from their leaves. Use trees in the environment to make careful observations, collect leaves to sort and classify then create keys to identify them.When investigating forces make paper helicopters and investigate how they fall. Investigate the conditions needed for germination whilst looking at plant lifecycles.
The Life of Trees (Key Stage Two and Key Stage Three)
In this activity children make careful observations of trees by estimating the number of leaves and branches, drawing leaves and taking bark rubbings. It could also be adapted to be used in KS1.
Other ideas could be to take photographs of trees and leaves. This activity could be done at different times of the year so children are able to observe a change over time and reinforce work on lifecycles and seasons.
Helicopter Seeds
A great activity which can be used when looking at air resistance in the topic forces. Investigate how a helicopter seed spins by creating paper spinners and timing how long they take to fall. The spinner can then be modified by looking at the size, shape of wings, no of paperclips on the tail or material it's made out of. This resource is cross-curricular and links to maths where it may be used to collect data then calculate average speeds and range.
Easy PEAsy Seed Germination
A detailed plan which can be used when learning about plant lifecycles. Groups investigate which conditions are needed for a pea to germinate. This activity could be started by showing children a letter from a 'farmer' asking them to find out how best to grow his peas.
Trees, Stages One and Two
This book contains some great ideas for working with autumn leaves at primary level. General ideas for using trees and woods in science are detailed on pages 2-5. Autumn activities are on pages13-21 which includes lesson ideas on collecting and sorting leaves, careful observation of the leaves and further questions to investigate. Some ideas are: Do some leaves decay faster than others? Which leaves fall the fatest? Do they fall faster on windy days?
Other activities for the different seasons are also contained in this book.
Tree Identification Key
Once you have collected leaves you could use this website to help identify them. Children could then go on to create their own keys to identify the tree from which the leaf has fallen. This could link to habitats, interdependence and adaptation and branching data bases in ICT.
Fight to save Britain's ash trees from killer fungus
A BBC news report on how a deadly fungus is putting millions of Britain's ash trees at risk. This could be used as a starter to discuss this topical issue in a lesson on the environment or to show how a woodland food web may be affected by this fungus.