This unit follows the growth of a plant from seed to seed. The students begin by dissecting seeds and growing them to explore how young plants change as they grow and respond to external inputs like light and water.  

From there, the Crosscutting Concept of Structure and Function is featured prominently as students go on to explore the parts of a plant and their functions. The students also explore what parts of a plant they eat.

When they get to the flower, the focus of study switches to pollination and pollinators. The students make models of flowers and use puppets to simulate the pollination process.

The unit concludes with the students exploring the different ways humans use plants and discussing ways that we can reduce, reuse, or recycle paper plant products in order to help conserve trees.  In addition to exploring how humans use plants to make products, they will also study inventions that have been created thanks to inspiration from plants. Students will discover biomimicry as they design and test models that solve a human problem by mimicking plant roots.