Having Fun Growing Plants

This activity gives children a chance to bring their own ideas and materials and have real fun trying to grow some plants. Some ‘seeds’ are likely to be more successful than others, but a little exploring and watching what happens can bring its own surprises and excitement. The children may need to be patient as some things they bring in could take quite a long time before they germinate – perhaps a term or more.

Tree Rings - The Science of Dendrochronology

The science of tree rings is known as dendrochronology. By studying cut sections of tree trunks you can determine the age of the tree, how fast it grew and what the climatic conditions were like during this time. This is a complete teaching package that can be used with pupils, with a case study of a forested area in North Staffordshire where trees were cut down. It is suitable for pupils at key stages 2 and 3.

Investigating Thigmotropism

Thigmotropism is an adaptive growth response shown by plants to mechanical stimuli, such as being touched. This resource gives some ideas of ways that structural responses can be explored, providing opportunities for individual student investigations.

How tall are you in leaves?

An activity that can be used as an example of making non-standard measurements and hence illustrating the importance of using standard measurements.

Food Miles

This activity stimulates students to think about the long distances travelled by foods. This activity, based on an original idea developed at Kew, is treated very simply here, but of course it could lead to much deeper issues such as types of transport, how long and how far food has travelled, pollution, cutting down forests and the effect on wildlife and local people.

Primary Numbers in Plants - Amaryllis flowers

Amaryllis plants offer a whole range of opportunities to look at numeracy, including drawing graphs, considering symmetry, and carrying out investigations. This teachers' sheet introduces you to some of these ideas.

Are you a plant eater? Plants in our daily lives

This activity is designed to help pupils become more aware of plants and how we use or interact with them in our everyday lives, by discussing the range of plants available to us and the different parts of the plant that are eaten.

Why does holly have prickles? Activities and investigations

Why does holly have prickles? How many prickles on a holly leaf? These simple thoughts can lead you into a number of useful activities with young pupils.

How to find the Height of a Tree

This numeracy resource introduces five different ways to measure and to estimate the height of a tree

A Leaf in Time - A Popular Introduction to Photosynthesis

Using photosynthesis as the link, this beautifully produced book looks at a range of topics of interest to pupils especially at Y5 and 6 (animals and plants are interdependent, process of photosynthesis, greenhouse effect, energy conservation)

Primary Booklet - Plants in their Natural Environment

This booklet and its accompanying resources have been updated to support the new Primary Curriculum.