We often assume that everyone can distinguish between a tree, bush, and herbaceous flowering plant but this is not always the case, especially when it comes to young learners.
Do you know how your youngest students think about plants?
If you’re not sure, consider using the “Is it a plant?” formative assessment probe presented in Uncovering Young Children’s Concept of a Plant, an article written by science education consultant and author, Page Keeley.
In her article, Keeley discusses how this probe was created “to elicit primary students’ initial ideas about plants and the characteristics they use to decide if something is a plant.”
The “Is it a plant?” assessment involves a single sheet of paper featuring simple illustrations of nine plant types — cactus, tree, grass, weed, bush, dandelion, water lily, vine, and fern. Students are asked to view the sheet and to select which of the illustrations represent a plant. They are then asked to share the reasons why they made the choices that they did. This probe leads to conversations between teachers and students about what a plant is and isn’t and provides educators with an opportunity to customize learning experiences that will expand their students’ understanding of plants.
View this assessment and find out how you can administer it yourself by purchasing Keeley’s article online from the journal Science and Children (99¢).
Literature Cited
Keeley, Page. (2017). Uncovering young children’s concept of a plant. Science and Children. 55(2): 20-22.
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