My daughter learned from this same curriculum in her 1st grade class. She was much more interested in the subject as a whole because she got to participate in planting, watering and watching her sunflower grow. A year later she still has her sunflower and can still tell me all about it.

What a great idea to teacher children about sunflowers. The teaching supplements are great. I try and do a project every year with my children and we will be doing sunflowers next summer!!

This is a wonderful resource. It makes learning about sunflowers fun. It gives step by step instructions for growing sunflowers. I think I enjoyed this as much as the children.

My students used this resource in conjunction with social studies and science. They loved the hands on experience that this project allowed and made something boring to them fun.

I will be also teaching this as a 4H lesson. Thank you for putting all of this together in one place. I will be coupling this lesson with the book Dust Bowl. Thanks!!

Excellent resource, fast and easy to demonstrate, clear results. As a further extension (if time permits), also demonstrate using another box with grass (live grass, not clippings) since many farmers now plant certain grasses or clovers while the ground "rests."

Thank you for such a great resource. I am starting my unit on plants and I like the way you interrelated the subject matter of plants and animals.

I used part of this resource to integrate into a project. My 7th graders were interested and engaged once they realized their connection to pollinators. I intend on using most of the materials in my classroom next year. Well Done Smithsonian! Thank you!

Coming from Lake Tahoe, the topic of soil erosion and nutrient pollution is very important because of the impact on water clarity. Some interesting extensions that could be added could include how the type of soil impacts soil erosion, the type of fertilizers used, and the impacts on water pollution. To make this important topic hit home, some of the tools that soil scientists used (Munsen soil color chart, etc.) could be presented to show that there is an entire field of science dedicated to this topic. Impacts on agriculture would also be very relevant. Adding a list of web links and possible extensions would make this activity and resource more useful.

I loved that this lesson was geared to the younger children. I currently have pen-pals in my class and love the idea of having a farm family as a pen-pal for the class. I'm going to look into this for next year!

The back ground info accompanying this lesson plan is a little over the heads of the suggested age range, but was very interesting. The activity sheet was very suitable for PreK-1st grade though, and would be a nice follow-up for a field trip to a farm or agricultural center. To make this lesson even better, it might be good to include some hands on activities such as planting seeds to observe in the classroom.

As a student of botanical illustration, I would prefer that the herbarium specimen or photo of the plant would be shown against the watercolor painting. I also found the site a little hard to navigate if I was unfamiliar with this type of work.

The resource provides a good introduction to the Tropical Research Institute. Photos and basic information tell the learned about the location and history of the research station. The site also provides an overview of the plant and animal species living on Barro Colorado, and gives some information on research activities that are conducted there.

In order to make the site more useful for high school students, I would like to have seen more details about research methods and actual studies that are conducted there. It would also be excellent to provide data from experiments, so that students can do their own analysis. A good model for this approach is on various website affiliated with the Long Term Ecological Research network (http://schoolyard.lternet.edu/)