Supplement Your Lessons on Plant Structure and Function

What does it take to teach about plants in your biology class?

It takes determination, fortitude, and as many top-notch materials as you can find!  One of my Dad's favorite sayings was, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."    This saying runs through my head each year when I begin to teach my units on plants to my high school biology students. I'm pretty sure that if I asked my students at the end of the year which topic was their least favorite..... they would all say plants! As biology teachers, we have to cover this material.  Our very existence depends upon these lovely living organisms.  I have found that my students love growing plants, and labs involving living specimens, germination of seeds, growing plants under various conditions helps to raise the interest level among my students just a bit.

For those of you who have been waiting, I have just put the final polish on the warm ups and bell ringers that I use with my students.  This set contains 28 student pages and covers everything they need to know about plant structure and function.  Here are some highlights in pictures:

In more detail, these warm up pages will cover the following concepts:

• Introduction to plant anatomy: Main organs of the plant, specialized organs of the plant.
• Types of plant cells: Parenchyma, collenchyma, and sclerenchyma.
• Tissue systems of a plant:  Dermal tissues, vascular tissues, and ground tissues.
• Vascular tissues:  Xylem, vessel elements, tracheids, phloem, sieve tube elements, companion cells.
• Meristematic tissues, apical meristems, lateral meristems, primary and secondary growth.
• Roots:  Functions of roots, taproot system, fibrous root system, meristematic region, region of elongation, region of maturation, epidermis, cortex, endodermis, pericycle, root hairs, root cap, adventitious roots, differences in monocot and dicot roots.
• Stems:  Functions of stems, nodes, internodes, buds, bud scales, terminal and lateral buds, epidermis, vascular bundles, pith, cortex, differences in monocot and dicot stems, cork, cork cambium, heartwood, sapwood, bark, vascular cambium, tubers, bulbs, corms, and rhizomes.
• Translocation and transpiration.
• Leaves:  Functions of the leaf, petiole, blade, veins, differences in monocot and dicot leaves, epidermis, cuticle, palisade cells, spongy cells, mesophyll, stomata, guard cells, gas exchange in leaves, simple and compound leaves, types of specialized leaves.
• Thinking critically:  One page of critical thinking and problem solving questions about plants.
• 6 pages of review:  Short answer, Modified True False, Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank, Review the vocabulary, and What’s the relationship?

Use this link to view these materials in my TpT store.  Thanks!