Education: Botany on Your Plate

Botany on Your Plate is a life science unit for grades K-4 that inspires children to explore the fascinating realm of plants we eat. Every lesson begins with plant snacks that spark curiosity, interesting questions, and social dialogue to fuel the learning process. This inquiry approach engages children as botanists observing and collecting data, discussing findings, and reflecting on what they learned. The unit was developed with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and many schools have adopted the curriculum because it weaves nutritional health, mathematics, language arts, and social studies together with investigative science.

Every culture measured, analyzed and celebrated the harvest. Your students will estimate number of seeds, predict the movement of water, compare structures, analyze food preference data, and diagram their findings as they study edible roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. Exploring and tasting fresh produce is a central theme of Botany on Your Plate. Children learn about the nutrient values of various plant parts while savoring the crunch and aromas of foods from the gardens of the world.

This unit provides strong support to major learning goals outlined in the National Science Education Standards. The sessions interweave life science with environmental science and connect strongly to the "science and inquiry" standard. The California schools testing the curriculum were required to meet performance goals focused on literacy and mathematics. To overcome the rigorous time constraints for science, Botany on Your Plate was designed to support certain mathematics, language arts, and social studies standards, as well as health standards related to nutrition.

Botany on Your Plate was developed in collaboration with teachers, parents, and nutrition educators. Moms, dads, and grandparents attending classes for English Language Learners have taken activities home to involve their youngsters in cooking and gardening. Teachers who are part of the national school garden movement have used this unit to link planting and harvesting activities to the classroom. Food service personnel at partner schools have played an important role in supporting classroom investigations with lunchroom salad bars and fresh fruit and vegetable choices. We encourage you to build a community of collaborators to broaden and deepen the impact of this love affair with edible plants!