Plant Needs Lesson

What Are Plant Needs?

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• Do you feed your plants hamburgers?

• What about dog food?

• Cat food?

• Do they make plant/tree food?

• Does anyone know how plants eat?​

Would a plant survive if you gave it a sandwich?

How do plants eat?

•Plants use their leaves to absorb sunlight.

•absorb: to take in or soak up

•They take the sunlight, mixed with oxygen (air) and water in order to make their food.

•Plants don’t have mouths to eat with like we do, they create their own food on the inside when they have the right mixture.

​Some text here about the topic of discussion.

Sunlight

• Can a plant sip from a straw?

• Do they like juice?

• Maybe Gatorade?

• Water?

• Does anyone know how plants drink?

Would a plant survive if you gave it milk?

How do plants drink?

• Plants use their roots to absorb water from the soil in a process called osmosis.

• osmosis: the movement of liquid into a living thing.

• Plants take the sunlight, mixed with oxygen (air) and water in order to make their food.

• Plants don’t have mouths to drink like we do, they use their roots like a straw and pull the water up into the plant.

​Some text here about the topic of discussion.

Water

Multiple Select

Which plants or parts of plants have you eaten?

• lettuce

• tomatoes

• cucumbers

• potatoes

Which plants or parts of plants have you eaten? 

• You've probably eaten lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, squash, apples, watermelon, and peaches.

• These are all plants or parts of plants.

How do you make your food?

• My parents make it for me in the kitchen.

• I can make cereal for myself.

• We cook our food on the stove. 

Open Ended

Why do living things need food?

Why do living things need food?

• It gives us energy.

• It makes us healthy so we can grow. 

What's a nutrient? 

• Nutrients are things that a plant or animal needs to grow that come from the surroundings.

• We get nutrients from food and vitamins.

• Plants get nutrients from the soil.

Multiple Choice

What is a basic need?

• is a basic thing you do not need

• is something you cannot live without

• is a need for plants only

What is a basic need? 

• A basic need is something you cannot live without.

• You need it to survive. 

Open Ended

Why do you think we need food?

Why do you think we need food?

• Food makes us grow.

• Food gives us energy.

• Food keeps us healthy.

• Without food we would die. 

Why is space a basic need? 

• If plants did not have enough space, they would get all tangled up and they couldn't grow.

• They might not be able to get enough light, water, or nutrients. 

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How do plants make their own food for energy?

• Plants use water, air, nutrients, and light to make their own food

Where do plants get most of their light energy?

• Plants get light energy from the sun.

• (You may have also seen "grow lights" that simulate sunlight.)

Open Ended

How do we use the energy in plants?

How do we use the energy in plants?

• When we eat plants, we get the food energy that the plant had made for itself.

• That is why eating fruits and vegetables is so good for us! 

Multiple Select

Do plants eat?

• Yes

• No

Do plants eat?

• No, they make their own food using nutrients, water, air, and light.

What part of the plant soaks up water and nutrients and sends them to the rest of the plant?

• The roots soak up water and nutrients in the ground.

To be continued next meeting...

Multiple Select

If a tree loses its leaves in the fall and winter, is it dead?

• Yes

• No

If a tree loses its leaves in the fall and winter, is it dead? 

• No, the tree is not dead. In the spring, when there is more sun and water, it will grow new leaves. 

Open Ended

What do you think would happen if a plant only got a little bit of its basic needs?

What do you think would happen if a plant only got a little bit of its basic needs? 

• It might now grow as much.

• It might grow slower.

• It might die.

How are a plant's basic needs different from yours?

• A plant needs water, air, light, and nutrients to make its own food.

• We need to get our food from a store or grow it in a garden.

• People need shelter, like houses. Plants might give shelter to each other just by covering them up. 

Can a plant get too much of its basic needs? What happens then?

• A plant might get too much water and drown.

• A plant could get too much sun and burn. (Some plants grow best with lots of sunlight and some need only a little sunlight.)

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Multiple Select

Ocean plants cannot make their own food because there is not enough soil to get nutrients from. Is this true or false?

• True

• False

How do ocean plants get enough sunlight to grow?

• Most ocean plants live near the surface of the water, so light energy from the sun still reaches them. 

If plants use nutrients in the soil, why don't they use up all the soil?

• They only use a little bit of the nutrients, and when the plants die, they return to the soil and turn into nutrients as they rot.

• (Crops can sometimes use up all the nutrients in the soil, so plants will not grow there anymore. Farmers have to be careful this does not happen.)

Lesson complete