Lesson Plan - Create Your Own Butterfly Garden

Content Area: Science/Math

Time: 4- 60 minute classes

Grade Level: Middle School

 Objectives:

1.      The student will develop an understanding for basic landscape design.

2.      The student will recognize and understand reasoning for purpose in designing specific gardens or landscape designs.

3.      The student will obtain information and use research to select certain plant species for specific reasons, choosing only plants that attract butterflies.

4.      The student will choose the shape of the garden using the given area using their geometry skills.

5.      The student will draw the garden to scale using graphing paper.

Strategies/Techniques:

Materials:

	Garden catalogs that contain plant species
	Various books on butterfly gardens such as:
	Butterflies and Moths: A guide to the more common American Species by
	Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists: Butterflies by Jonathan Latimer
	Butterfly Watching: A How to Guide by Diane Bair
	Swallowtail Butterflies by Jane Dallinger
	An Extraordinary Life: The Story of Monarch Butterfly by Laurence Pringle
	Various magazines and ads that contain pricing of gardening materials
	Internet ready computers
	Graphing paper
	Library privileges or various books on gardens
	Work Sheet specifying what needs to be in the garden (ws1)
	Work sheet specifying what needs to be in the finish paper (ws2)
	Work sheet specifying what needs to be in the presentation (ws2)
	Pre-made groups

 Procedures:

 Anticipatory Set:

Start this lesson in September. The Monarch butterflies are now migrating though our area heading south to warmer climates.  This is a time when a lot of photographers and admirers get to take pictures and enjoy these beautiful creatures.  I am sure that you all know about the parts and metamorphic cycle of butterflies, but do you know how to attract these beautiful creatures to your own backyard?  Today we will begin learning about and designing our own butterfly gardens.

 Development:

 Day 1:

1.  Hold a class discussion and make a chart about what the students know and what they would like to know about designing a butterfly garden.  Make the chart on the overhead.

2.  Discuss and write (as a class) down the process on how to go about designing a butterfly garden utilizing the chart made previously.

3.  If possible, walk around the school area to observe different landscaping techniques and ideas.

4.  Have students briefly look over books on butterfly gardens.

 Day 2:

1.  Place students into groups of three.  Pass out the work sheet of criteria for the gardens.

2.  Explain to the students that they will need to complete the Garden worksheet graph, create a small and large scale garden lay out, create a group essay, and present the garden to the class.

3.  Have the students look at the area given for the garden.  Explain how to figure out area, length, and width and how to use graph paper to create a garden that is not a square. (Ex. Area=343, you can fill in 343 squares on the graph paper)

4.  Work this out on the board.

5.  Explain that a legend needs to be attached to the garden graph. 

6.  Allow the students to go to the library or computer lab to gather research on creating a butterfly garden.

 Day 3:

1.  This is a workday for the groups to collaborate information and write paper together.

2.  Allow the students to go to library if necessary.

 Day 4:

1.  Presentations

Extensions:

Read An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly aloud to the students at the beginning of each class until the final presentations are due.

Students could predict what obstacles could hinder plant growth.

Certain herbicides could be analyzed for safety and effectiveness.

The class could actually start planting one of the gardens on the school campus.

Students could buy seeds, grow the plants, and sell the plants to raise money for the class.

Assessment of Student Learning:

 Did the students follow directions on the worksheets given?  If not give appropriate grade.

Worksheet 1 - What is in my butterfly garden?

Worksheet 2 - Essays and Criteria for presentations

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