| Sandra's guide pages |
| Activities based around plants |
| from a training / information session run by Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, 27 April 2002. The ideas are primarily for those visiting the Botanic Gardens but many are adaptable. On a visit to the gardens: ? beforehand, describe some of the plants to the girls, and get them to draw it. Can they find the plants you described? ? Edinburgh’s glass houses have various food plants in (coffee, cocoa, sugar, rice, ginger etc.). Buy some of each beforehand and let the girls taste the product of the plant as they look at it. ? In a safe place, like the gardens, go on a trust walk – barefoot. Get in pairs, blindfold one girl, the other leads her around. At the gardens or anywhere outdoors… Meet a tree: in pairs with one girl blindfolded again. Lead her to a tree, let her explore it with her hands – see how wide it is, what the bark feels like, whether it has branches sticking out and so on. Then lead her back to the middle and remove the blindfold – can she find “her” tree again? Try a scavenger hunt, but remember not to pick any plants unless there is a large population (for example it’s fine to pick daisies!). Give each girl or pair of girls a film canister or matchbox and see how many items they can find that fit in to it. Tree tales: Many people have one or more trees which are important in their lives. Get into pairs. One of each pair tells the other a short story about a tree for a maximum of one minute. Then swap and the second person tells the first about another tree, for another minute. Then swap partners, and each tell the tale that you heard (not the one you first told). Do this two or three times, then come together & share any particularly interesting stories. Human slide projector: this activity is particularly good outdoors in late summer or early autumn. Each person needs a leaf and a “slide holder” (a piece of cardboard, shaped as below). Fold the slide holder in the middle, and put the leaf into it. Now get everyone in a circle, facing outwards. Hold your slide up to the light – can you see the veins? What else? When the leader claps her hands pass your slide to the person on your right, and look at the new slide you’ve been given – is this one different? Keep going until you get your original slide back. Bark rubbings: if each girl does a rubbing of a different tree, and you use an assortment of colours, the results can make a stunning display. Draw the space: to get girls to draw what’s there rather than what they think is there, get them to draw the spaces in between and within trees rather than the tree itself. It’ll look much more like a tree than just telling them to draw the tree! Herbarium specimens: at the Gardens you may be able to see herbarium specimens – some of the ones at Edinburgh are over 300 years old! But if you can’t make it to gardens you can still make your own specimens. (Be careful only to do this with common plants). Take a leaf, and a flower if the plant has flowers. Press them, in a flower press if you have one, otherwise between sheets of blotting paper under some heavy books. Once it’s pressed stick it to some card and write the name clearly under it. You could use the specimens to make a survey of a small area and what plants are in it. Did you know…? Ferns are the oldest plants in the world – they were around at the time of the dinosaurs. Plants which are coloured blue and yellow are usually pollinated by butterflies, red flowers are usually pollinated by birds and white ones by moths. |
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| The leaf slide for the human slide projector - cut a shape like the one here from card (eg an old cereal box). fold along the dotted line and cut out the two "windows" then it's ready to use (see above). |