WOLF
CREEK PLANTS
best
done April-Oct, so deciduous trees will have leaves
This exercise is designed to familiarize students with a lot of the plants at Wolf Creek Environmental School before the class goes there. The format could be used for any group of plants.
Prepare these 10 cards, each with names of three plants found in the Arb and at Wolf Creek:
1. sword fern, deer fern, lady fern
2. leather fern, California polypody, pig-a-back plant
3. salmonberry, thimbleberry, red flowering currant
4. coltsfoot, bleeding heart, candy flower
5. cascara, big leaf maple, red elderberry
6. red alder, hazelnut, osoberry
7. wild ginger, redwood sorrel, inside-out flower
8. California bay, rhododendron, coastal willow
9. Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, redwood
10. black huckleberry, red huckleberry, salal
Each student is to become an expert at identifying the plants on at least one of these cards. Students work in pairs or threes (depends how many kids in the class relative to the number of cards you made). Each student has his own notebook or paper. Each pair is given one of the cards and finds in turn the three plants on it. For each plant each student draws a picture and takes notes that will help him remember and recognize that plant. When a group has mastered one card's plants, it can trade for a different card and proceed with learning three more plants.
You can figure out how to encourage thorough work on this, rather than the quick check.