In this STEM unit, students participate in an activity to grow plants in an environment very similar to the moon, which is designed in a unique partnership between NASA scientists and engineers and education professionals. The lesson incorporates leading-edge insight and practical experiences for students on how NASA works with plants. Students will describe the need for life science research on the International Space Station and the moon. They will also identify various plant species that are suitable for lunar plant growth and their requirements. In the culminating activities, students design and construct a working prototype of a plant growth chamber.

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In this short video and accompanying activity and readings, students learn about the Venus Fly Trap and how it adapts to its environment to survive.

This is an activity about the requirements of life. Learners will explore what living things need to survive and thrive by creating and caring for a garden plot (outdoors where appropriate) or a container garden (indoors) at the program facility. The garden will be used to beautify the facility with plant life with many planting and landscaping options provided. Children will consider the requirements of living things, compare the surface conditions on Mars to those found on Earth, view images/video of a NASA Astrobiology Institute "garden" where astrobiologists are studying life under extreme conditions, and consider the similarities and differences in the type of life that would be possible on Mars as compared to their garden on Earth. It also includes specific tips for effectively engaging girls in STEM. This is activity 3 in Explore: Life on Mars? that was developed specifically for use in libraries.

Using this interactive resource, students will explore the concept of photosynthesis as it relates to forestry.

In this lesson, students will watch a visualization of empirical scientific data to explore seasonal changes in primary productivity on the earth. They will then formulate and research their own scientific questions about primary productivity on the earth and present their research in a classroom scientific poster session.

Explain the significance of the processes of photosynthesis, respiration and transpiration to the survival of green plants and other organisms.

In this series of inquiry-based activities, students investigate photosynthesis and optimal conditions for growth.

In this lesson, students compare and contrast the processes of sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction by examining plant reproduction.

Answer Key can be found in Instructor Notes. Drawing completed by Jeff Wolfhope.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Science. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Science. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team and is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Science.

In this video, students learn that plants create food through photosynthesis. For photosynthesis to take place plants have some basic needs. Different parts of the plant are used in photosynthesis.

In this lesson, students will investigate leaves up close to look for the structures responsible for gas exchange.

In this lesson, students explore how an excess of sunlight affects a plant's ability to perform photosynthesis.

Students will learn about the process of transpiration and the environmental factors that can change transpiration rates in plants. Students will examine data sets gathered from the tropical montane cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica and media from Canopy in the Clouds to deepen their understanding of how hot water in an ecoystem can affect transpiration.

In this lesson, students will analyze real scientific data from a short visualization clip to form logical hypotheses about what drives the migration patterns of raptors. Students will also describe and explain the connectedness of organisms within and across ecosystems and illustrate how primary productivity is the foundation of all food webs and how seasonal changes in primary productivity influence the behaviors of higher order consumers.

This encyclopedia entry is for the term "autotroph." An autotroph is an organism that can produce its own food using light, water, carbon dioxide, or other chemicals. Because autotrophs produce their own food, they are sometimes called producers. Text for this entry is appropriate for the middle and high school grade levels.