Native Plants and Climate: A Seasonal Study of the Rhythms of Nature
Written and Shared by Teri Bickmore, Midland, MI

The Native Plants and Climate project is an extension of the Journey North ‘Red Emperor’ Tulip study. The project was created by Teri Bickmore to use with her Science Club for grades 4-8. Teri is sharing the project with Journey North in hopes that others will find it worthwhile for their schools. Teri’s Club currently participates in the Tulip Study and plans to plant a Native Plant garden this spring. The Native Plant project will focus primarily on native plants and growing degree-days.

• Design and Planting Ideas
• Important Considerations
• Fall Activities
• Winter Activities
• Spring Activities: Growing Degree Days
• Student Journals
• Extensions
• Assessment of Student Learning

In the spring, look for a native plant sale (Conservation District, garden clubs or nurseries) to select the plants for the garden. For central MI we chose Red Osier Dogwood (a native flowering shrub), Cinnamon Fern (a deciduous non-blooming plant), Christmas Fern (an evergreen non-blooming plant), and Columbine, Trillium and Bloodroot (spring-blooming woodland wildflowers).

• Select native plants that require similar growing conditions (sun/shade, wet/dry, etc.), produce flowers during school months, and provide winter interest.
• Keep in mind plants with compact growth.
• Select plants which can be asexually propagated (cuttings, divisions) if we wish to share genetically identical plants with students or with other schools who might want to collaborate on this project with us in the future.

Important Considerations:

1. Remember to plant the taller plants in the back of the garden bed and the shorter ones in front. (Example: Plant red-Osier dogwoods in the back, ferns in mid area and spring-blooming wildflowers in front.)
2. Be extremely careful of spacing. Calculate how much room the full-grown plants will need. Make sure that you have provided ample room for growth so that the specimens will not be growing into buildings and crowding each other as they mature.
3. Group plants of the same type together.
4. Add stepping stones so that students can easily observe all parts of the garden without trampling it.
5. Label the plants.
6. Provide a mulch, such as woodchips (these can often be obtained free of charge from a tree servicing company) about 3-4” deep over the soil. This will help conserve moisture and allow plants to become established.
7. Monitor closely the first year.
8. Weed and water often the first year, especially during a hot summer. As the garden becomes established, the amount of tending needed decreases significantly.

Activities:
Fall Activity
In the fall, students will familiarize themselves with the plants in the garden. They will make leaf rubbings in their journals and describe what each plant looks like. They will also learn more about the plants by using field guides and Internet resources. Groups of students will also take digital photos of each plant and write descriptive captions for a classroom display. (This task should be delegated to a different group of students each time it is done.) It is important to list the dates the observations are made. This can be done as often as the teacher likes. By taking frequent photos, change over time can easily be observed.

Winter Activity
In the winter, most plants are dormant, but there are always interesting observations to make. You might get lucky enough to see birds eating fruit or seeds from a plant. You might also notice things like branch habit or color that were not very apparent when the plant was covered with leaves. Things like birds nests and chrysalises are always more visible too. Students might wonder why one kind of fern lost its leaves while the other stayed green. Many questions such as these could lead to further investigations by students. For example, they could compare and contrast leaves of a Christmas Fern and a Cinnamon Fern under the microscope. Make sure to take more photographs to add to your classroom display so that you have a continuous record of change.

Spring: Growing-degree Activity
Beginning on March 1st (that’s when the official start date of the growing season is), students should use the following formula in degrees Fahrenheit to calculate growing degree-days:

Example 1: Let’s say your daily highs and lows are 60 and 40. The sum is 100. Divide that by two, which equals 50. Now subtract 50. Your growing degree-days for that date are zero.

Example 2: Let’s say you have a high of 60 and a low of 50. The sum of those is 110. One hundred ten divided by 2 is 55. Fifty-five minus 5 equals 5. In this example, you have accumulated 5 growing degree-days for that particular date.

Growing degree-days are cumulative, so they need to be calculated and added to the previous total on a daily basis. This is a good project to put on a calendar or graph on a bulletin board for the entire class to see. Each group of students could be responsible for a week of data. Maximum and minimum daily temperatures can be found for your zip code at www.accuweather.com. I believe that this site also lists growing degree-days beginning in March. Alternatively, you can use a minimum/maximum daily temperature thermometer. Your County Cooperative Extension is another source where precise growing degree-day information can be obtained.

Student Journals
Begin using a student journal the first time the project is mentioned. Use it with each activity for recording important observations:

• recording anatomical drawings and written descriptions of plants
• recording dates for emerging and blooming
• making comparisons of plant activity among the various species
• recording dates and growing degree data
• recording photographic information

Begin using a student journal the first time the project is mentioned. Use it with each activity. Once spring arrives make frequent trips to the garden since spring will bring rapid changes. Students should write observations about each plant such as when new growth emerged from the soil or when the plant “leafed-out” or bloomed. These observations should be dated and correlated with the growing degree-days. The growing degree-days determine a plant’s growing schedule. Students should also notice relationships between plants such as “the Columbine and Trillium are in bloom at the same time”. Again, students should take frequent photographs and add them to the display already posted in the room. You may wish to post primary information such as first emergence of growth for plants that completely die back in winter (Cinnamon fern, and all wildflowers), “leaf-out” (dogwood) and bloom (all flowering plants) on the calendar or graph with the growing degree data. Save this data from year to year for comparison.

Extensions

• Design a website or page on a school website that is devoted to the display of data and photographs from the gardens, including archived data from previous years.
• After successfully mastering lessons from the initial school garden, other gardens could be planted at different schools so that students could collaborate. The lessons could be expanded to include a study of microclimates. In Mid-Michigan, there are significant differences in climate within a radius of only a few miles. Comparing identical gardens planted miles away from each other would provide students with a unique opportunity to learn about local climatic variations.

Assessment of Student Learning
Individually graded student journals which must include the following for each entry:

1. Date and degree days, (cumulative and for that particular day)
2. Drawings and written descriptions of each plant explaining observations about stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds.
3. Written descriptions comparing and contrasting various plants. For example, “The Columbine and Dogwood are in bloom at the same time.” or “The Christmas Fern has leaves, but the Cinnamon Fern doesn’t.”
4. Proposal of an “Advanced Discussion Question” which could be used for further study or investigation.

Team Graded Events:

1. Collection of high/low daily temperature data and computation of growing degree days. Students will share this data with the class. Data will include the current day’s information as well as cumulative totals for the growing season. Each group will be “on the job” for a week before handing the duties off to another group.
2. Printed digital photographs with captions to be displayed on a classroom bulletin board. Groups will take photos one day then will pass the camera around “round robin” style for future photo shoots.
3. Students will offer oral constructive comments and/or observations concerning photos and captions.
4. For Journey North Tulips, plotting of bloom data on a map using latitude and Longitude and oral explanations of any blooming “anomalies”

Individually Graded Test:
Use a “lab” type test where students move from station to station identifying plants (or photos of plants), and interpreting findings of our study will culminate assessments. The test will include information from both the native garden and the Journey North project.

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