Lesson Plan: The Never-Ending Circles of Nature
Materials Needed:
- Your copy of Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults
- A notebook or journal and a pencil
- Large sheet of paper, poster board, or a few smaller sheets taped together
- Art supplies of your choice (markers, colored pencils, crayons, paint, clay, etc.)
- Access to the internet (with supervision) for research
- For the Water Cycle option: A clear glass jar with a lid, a small cup of hot water, a few ice cubes.
- For the Nutrient Cycle option: A clear glass jar with a lid, a small handful of soil, some plant scraps (lettuce, leaves, grass clippings), a spray bottle with water.
- For the Food Web option: Index cards or small pieces of paper, string or yarn.
Lesson Steps
1. Introduction: The Gift of the Cycle (10 minutes)
Hello River! Today, we're going to explore a beautiful idea from Braiding Sweetgrass: the idea of reciprocity, or how everything in nature is part of a cycle of giving and taking. Remember how the book talks about how pecans feed the squirrels, and the squirrels then plant the new pecan trees? That's a perfect example of a cycle!
Let's find this quote in the book: "The exchange of incomprehensible gifts."
In your journal, let's brainstorm a few other "circles" or "cycles" we see in our everyday lives. Think about:
- The way day turns to night and back to day again.
- The way the seasons change from winter to spring, summer, and fall.
- The life cycle of a plant: seed to sprout to flower to fruit and back to seed.
These are all cycles. Today, we'll look at the big, invisible cycles that connect entire ecosystems.
2. Exploring the Big Idea: Ecosystem Cycles (10 minutes)
An ecosystem is a community of living things (like plants, animals, and fungi) interacting with their non-living environment (like the sun, water, and soil). For this community to survive, it needs things to move around in a circle, so nothing is ever wasted. We're going to look at three important ecosystem cycles.
- The Water Cycle: How water moves from the sky, to the land, through plants and animals, and back to the sky again.
- The Nutrient Cycle: How the building blocks for life (like nitrogen and carbon) are used, decomposed, and returned to the soil to be used again. Think of it as nature's ultimate recycling program!
- A Food Web: How energy moves from the sun to plants, to the animals that eat plants, and to the animals that eat other animals. It shows who eats whom!
3. Your Choice: Pick a Cycle to Investigate! (25 minutes)
Now, you get to become an expert on one of these cycles. Read through the three choices below and pick the one that sounds most interesting to you. Follow the instructions for your choice.
CHOICE 1: The Water Cycle - Raindrop's Journey
Let's see the water cycle in action!
- Experiment: Carefully pour a small amount of hot water into your glass jar (about an inch deep). Place the lid on upside down.
- Place a few ice cubes on top of the upside-down lid.
- Watch the inside of the jar closely for a few minutes. What do you see forming on the sides of the jar and on the bottom of the lid? When the droplets on the lid get heavy, what happens?
- This little jar is a model of the whole Earth! The hot water is like the ocean warming (evaporation), the cold lid is like the cool atmosphere (condensation), and the falling drips are like rain (precipitation). In your journal, draw what you saw and label these three parts.
CHOICE 2: The Nutrient Cycle - Decomposition Discovery
Let's explore how nature recycles!
- Create a Mini-Compost Jar: Place your handful of soil in the bottom of your jar. Add the plant scraps (leaves, lettuce, etc.) on top. Lightly spray with water to make it damp, but not soaking wet.
- Put the lid on the jar and place it in a warm, sunny spot. Over the next week, we will observe what happens. The scraps will start to break down and turn back into soil. This is decomposition!
- Think & Discuss: The decomposers (tiny bacteria and fungi) are breaking down the old plants to return their nutrients to the soil. How is this a gift to future plants? In your journal, write or draw how a fallen leaf eventually helps a new seed grow.
CHOICE 3: Our Local Food Web - Minneapolis Connections
Let's map out the connections right here in our city!
- Research: With help, search online for "wildlife in Minneapolis parks." Make a list of at least 5-7 different living things. Try to get a mix of plants, plant-eaters (herbivores), and meat-eaters (carnivores).
Some ideas to look for: Oak Tree (producer), Grass (producer), Rabbit (herbivore), Gray Squirrel (herbivore), Robin (omnivore - eats worms and berries), Red-Tailed Hawk (carnivore), Red Fox (carnivore), Earthworm (decomposer). - Map it Out: On your index cards, write or draw one living thing on each card.
- Arrange the cards on a table. Use your yarn to connect them. Draw an arrow with your finger along the yarn showing the direction the energy flows. For example, draw the yarn from the Oak Tree (acorns) TO the Squirrel. From the Squirrel TO the Hawk. You have just built a food web!
4. Creation Station: Illustrate Your Cycle! (30-45 minutes)
Now it's time to show what you learned in a creative way! Using your large paper and art supplies, create a beautiful, detailed illustration of the cycle you chose.
Your goal is to teach someone else how your cycle works just by looking at your poster. Be sure to include:
- A title for your cycle.
- Clear drawings of all the major parts.
- Labels for the key stages (like evaporation, condensation, precipitation OR producer, consumer, decomposer).
- Arrows showing the direction that the water, nutrients, or energy is moving.
This can be a scientific diagram, a cartoon story of a water drop, a collage of Minneapolis animals, or any other idea you have. Have fun with it!
5. Sharing and Reflection (10 minutes)
Let's look at your amazing creation! Please present your illustration and explain how your cycle works, step-by-step.
After you share, let's think about these questions together:
- How does your cycle show the idea of a gift being passed on?
- What is the "job" of each part of the cycle?
- How do humans fit into this cycle? Do we help it, or do we sometimes break the circle?
- Connecting back to Braiding Sweetgrass, how does understanding this cycle help us feel more grateful for the world around us?