Share it! Science

Growing plants with children has so many benefits- learning plant life cycles, learning where food comes from, and of course learning some responsibility along the way! Growing a kid's theme garden can really connect children with their garden patch.

Last year, we explored growing Rainbow and Pollinator gardens. This year we will investigate themed vegetable gardens: a Taco garden and a Pizza garden!

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Growing a Taco Garden

You can get started growing a taco garden in pots, a small garden bed or in a portion of a larger garden.

Green and sweet peppers from the garden grow with kids

Garden Peppers! ©SBF 2015

What can you grow in a taco garden? There are a wide variety of tomatoes and peppers to start.

You might also want to try herbs like cilantro, or grow some scallions or onions.

Lettuce is easy to direct sow into the garden and it isn't too difficult to keep your crop growing throughout the summer.

What other vegetables can you put on a taco? Get creative!

You can make some salsa right out of your garden with this kid's salsa recipe from Weelicious.

Although growing corn and grinding it for your own tortillas might seem a little ambitious, this can definitely lead to an interesting discussion about where the other ingredients for a taco come from!

You might also want to check out the picture book, So You Want to Grow a Taco? by Bridget Heos to explore the idea further.

If you are interested in growing your taco garden in pots, you might try some of the container tomatoe varieties from Renee's Garden such as: Heirloom Stupice or Super Bush.

Herbs are easy to grow on a patio or even indoors. For a taco garden you might try some cilantro, like this heirloom variety.

There are also many nice varieties of lettuce that can be grown directly in the garden, or in a container. I really like Sweetie Baby Romaine and Renee's Baby Leaf Blend.

Mixed lettuce container garden grow with kids

Container lettuce. SBF 2015

Growing a Pizza Garden

Dutch oven pizza! SBF 2015

What is a pizza made of? What can you grow in your pizza garden? Tomatoes and oregano for sauce, basil, peppers and onions for toppings. If you have a large garden you probably have other items that would taste yummy on there, like eggplant, or even some fried zucchini!

Basil for a pizza garden gardening with kids

Basil SBF 2015

Just as you can grow many of your "taco plants" in the garden, or in pots, the same goes for your pizza toppings. Basil and oregano grow wonderfully in pots or out under and among the tomatoes in the garden. These herbs have the added benefit of keeping some tomato pests away!

You might try Italian Genovese or Large Leaf Cameo basil.


Tomatoes SBF 2015

Roma tomatoes are great for making tomato sauce. Try this pizza sauce recipe with the kids.

For further learning and discussion about growing pizza ingredients, investigate So You Want to Grow a Pizza? by Bridget Heos.

To get you started with your taco or pizza garden, we're giving away 4 sets of 4 packages of Renee's Garden Seeds. Using the Rafflecopter box below you can enter to win some tomato, pepper and herb seeds for your garden. Later this summer, the winners will be asked to share how their gardens fared this year! The giveaway runs from April 5th, 2016- April 11th, 2016. Winners will be notified via e-mail and announced on the blog. Good luck and have fun gardening!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/after-school-linky-4-11.html

What is Inquiry Based Science Curriculum www.shareitscience.com

With so many different approaches to teaching science, sometimes curriculum can be mystifying to parents and novice teachers. This is a brief overview of the inquiry science model and how it fits into today's science standards.

Inquiry based science teaching is a way to frame science topics and questions so that students are driven by their own curiosity and discovery to find the answers. The inquiry model can be applied to just about any science lesson or curriculum with a little time and thoughtful preparation by the teacher. Although in many ways the learning in this type of lesson is student driven, teachers who use the inquiry model for their lessons must carefully frame them so that students have the resources, framework and background knowledge they need to be successful.

The “5 E Instructional Model” is a way to guide inquiry instruction. The 5 E’s are: Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend (or Elaborate) and Evaluate.

During the “engage” portion of a lesson, students are presented with a topic, idea or question that piques their interest and allows them to call upon and make connections with their prior knowledge. “Explore” allows students to directly engage with materials. After students have had a chance to make observations and ask their own questions, the “Explain” phase kicks in. This is where students can share their own explanations and teachers can provide content knowledge that confirms what students have found, or helps to redirect any lingering misconceptions. “Extend” or “Elaborate” is a chance for students to apply their new understanding to a task or further question. The process finishes with “Evaluate”, which is just as it sounds, teachers assess whether or not students have an understanding and mastery of the concept.

For example, an inquiry lesson at the elementary level on flower parts might look something like this:

Engage- students are presented with a question: Are all flowers the same? Do all flowers have the same parts? Students are then given the opportunity to share their ideas. This phase engages students but also serves as a way for teachers to assess the prior knowledge of the class.

Explore- students are given a variety of flowers, magnifying glasses, tweezers and their science notebook. They make observations, draw and investigate the flowers.

Explain- students are given the opportunity to share their ideas and observations. Then the teacher provides some background content. A diagram or a large flower model is shown and students learn the names for the different parts of the flower.

Extend- students are given more flower samples, this time with the directive to see if they can find particular parts of the flower. They question and try to explain how the shapes are different on the different varieties of flowers.

Evaluate- students are given some sort of assessment to see if they can identify the different flower parts. This might be in the form of designing a poster, using technology to magnify and project an image of a flower sample and pointing out the different parts to the class, a written assessment, or a task where they must build a flower with the appropriate parts out of paper or other media.

View this example of a great inquiry based science project:

Science inquiry is promoted by the National Science Education Standards, and the more recent Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), that have been adopted by several states since their completion in 2013. To see if your state is one that has adopted the NGSS click here. Science curriculum varies widely depending on where you are in the United States. To better understand how science is taught at your child’s school it is best to discuss the teaching methods, amount of time spent on the subject, curriculum and texts used with their teachers or administrators. Best practice science is taught in a hands-on or inquiry-based way.

As states begin to adopt the NGSS, schools will be working to be sure their curriculum aligns with these standards. The standards require that science lessons help students develop crucial critical thinking and communication skills. Being able to explain science concepts and understanding through models is an important aspect of the NGSS. When we say “models” here we do not necessarily mean 3-D models, but a scientific idea or a description that combines creativity with data and observations. Inquiry lessons work well to meet NGSS, as they encourage critical thinking, developing models and carefully collecting data.

Wading through the different standards can be daunting. The difference between the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in Science and the NGSS is that the Common Core standards are meant to aid students in meeting reading, writing and speaking the language of the sciences. The Common Core literacy standards do not serve as science education standards; they instead work to supplement them. To answer other questions you may have as your state adopts the NGSS standards visit this FAQ page.

Another great resource for understanding how science can best be taught is A Framework for K-12 Science Education, which can be purchased or downloaded in .pdf form for free here. This text was the pre-cursor to the NGSS and is written in a narrative, “user-friendly” way that is enlightening for parents and educators alike. I highly recommend taking a look at it if you are a parent, teacher or interested in science education curriculum.

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