NY Botanical Gardens: High School

How do Flowering Plants Differ?

Grade Level: 9^th-10th

Learning Standard: S2, S5, S6, S7

Time requirements: Approximately 90 minutes preparation time and 90 minutes class time

Topics Covered by this Lesson: angiosperm, gymnosperm, dicots, monocots, family of plants, cotyledon, seed leaves, leaf venation, stems, flowers

Pre-Visit:

Purpose: To distinguish the characteristics that separate the flowering plants (angiosperms).

Objectives: To review with students the basic anatomy of flowering plants. To teach the students venation, stem, and flowering patterns of angiosperms. To make students able to identify a monocot from a dicot on sight.

Materials required: rose flowers (dicots), lily flowers(monocots), magnifying glass, a razor, a flowering chart on angiosperms

Student Learning Prerequisites: Students should understand the anatomy and life cycle of angiosperms. They should know the pedicel, receptacle, sepals, calyx, petals, corolla, stamens, filament, anther, pistil, stigma, style, and ovary.

Visit: Students will visit the NY botanical Gardens and get a chance to view and touch the wide diversity of flowering plants on exhibit. The students will be given approximately ten different flowering plants, and the goal of identifying which are dicots and which are monocots. They will attempt to do this by looking at the seed leaves if available, leaf venation patterns, the stems and flowers.

Post Visit:

Assessment: After the trip to the garden, students will return to the classroom to assess how many plants they correctly identified. Each student will explain his or her reason for identifying the plants as either dicot or monocot. A review of the difference between the two groups will be repeated using the lily and the rose.

Extensions: This lesson will be used as an introduction to plant and biodiversity through students understanding of the wide diversity of plant life.

Possible Questions that may be brought up:

§ Why did flowering plants evolve into dicots and monocots?

§ Does one type of flowering plant have a greater chance for survival than the other?

§ Which type of plant is the oldest form? Youngest?

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