Birds Bees Flowers Trees

4.11.13-BEETS-KP-LessonPlans_IMG_1112
This afternoon, Thursday, April 11, 2013, lesson plans were the name of the game! Our current BEETS (Band of Environmentally Educated and Employable Teens) tried out their lesson plans of birds, bees, flowers and trees. It involved weeks of gathering information and gearing their lessons to K-5 students they will soon be mentoring. Today was about peer review. Everyone showed well researched information which they convey with great activities to inspire learning. Having a small tree as a prop, Julien Lundh went through why trees are important and how they grow. He had his “class” draw the parts of a tree and answered questions. Julianna Echeverria gave a lesson on bees, explaining how they pollinate plants which make up most of the foods we eat. Everyone got to taste the nectar from a fuchsia plant. Sydni Walker gave a lesson on flowers and their parts. One of her activities was having everyone make flowers out of paper and pipe-cleaners. Finally Jennifer Rodriguez did a lesson on ladybugs. She read us a story and had everyone go throughout the garden and find ladybugs that she had hidden (made out of paper and markers). All the lessons got high marks and positive critiques. The next steps for these new instructors are to work with our staff and K-5 students in our various CommunityGrows Programs.