Chapter 4 Lesson 3 "Seedless Plants"

Materials:

• Worksheet, parts of a fern.
• 2 colors of Construction Paper (one dark), scissors, clear tape (Independent Practice)

Objective:

• Students will list vascular and nonvascular plants that are seedless.
• Students will describe similarities and differences between ferns and seed plants.
• Students will describe mosses and how they grow.

Alaska Standards:

• SCI A-12 Students will distinguish the patterns of similarity and differences in the living world in order to understand the diversity of life and understand the theories that describe the importance of diversity for species and ecosystems.
• SCI A-15 Students will use science to understand and describe the local environment.
• SCI B-1 Students will use the processes of science: classifying.

Anticipatory Set: Students will be reminded what they have learned about angiosperms and gymnosperms. What do both have in common? (seeds) What kinds of plants can reproduce without seeds? How do the plants reproduce if they don't have seeds?

Show the students several pictures of plants without seeds. While showing the photographs students should answer these questions:

Based on what you see in the photographs, what kind of environment do you think is good for mosses and ferns?

Do you see anything in the photographs that surprises you? If so, explain what is surprising. What roles do you think that mosses and ferns play in nature?

Click Picture to Enlarge

Teacher Input: Students will be remided of what it means to be vascular and nonvascular. Students will look at the pictures again and state whether the plant they see is vascular or novascular.

Students will be shown a fern frond. Show the sori on the bottom of the frond. Students will discuss the actual or piture of the fern in the book on P 77 and define the parts of the fern. (Frond, Sori, Spore, Rhizome) Students will use the picture to label the parts of their fern.

Teacher Modeling: Display a clump of moss and discuss how it has the ability to live on the side of a rock. What materials does it need to survive and where does it get them. Discuss with the students the Rhizoid and how it quickly absorbs water. Explain how some mosses secrete an acid on rocks. Discuss how some mosses can absorb 20 times there body mass in water. How does that help them live anywhere?

Check for Understanding: Define Rhizoid and Humus while you discuss with the students how ferns and mosses are very helpful to the environment:

• create soil
• grow where other plants can't
• help break down other plants.
• create humus, very rich topsoil, when they die
• create bogs which lock up energy because of the lack of oxygen
• Materials from bogs are valuable to people, coal, oil, peat, ect.

Guided Practice: Work through the questions with the students on Page 80. Help them with answer to questions they do not know.

Closure: Show the students the drawing of the plant classification from the beginning of the chapter and use a question and answer session to discuss how ferns and mosses are related to the rest of the plant Kingdom. Discuss similarities and differences.

Independent Practice: Have the students draw and cut out a fern then with clear tape have the students tape the fern to a dark peice of construction paper. Put the artwork under a bright light or in sunlight for several days. Then when you remove the fern you will have a fern silhouette left on the construction papers as it will fade in the bright light.

Take Quiz over Chapter 4, Lesson 3 "Seedless Plants"

Duration:

30 minutes + 10-15 for Independent Practice (Could be longer if taken for homework).