Using an orchard to teach students provides a hands-on, real-world context for understanding concepts in areas like biology, agriculture, and environmental science, allowing them to observe and engage with natural processes. Here are a few ideas below!
Objective: Explore the orchard to find different types of apples, berries, and native pollinator plants.
Activity: Create a checklist of things to find, such as specific apple varieties, berry species, native plants, and different pollinators (bees, butterflies, hummingbirds). Students can mark off each item as they discover it.
Skills: Observation, species identification, teamwork.
Objective: Document the growth and changes in apple trees throughout the year.
Activity: Assign each student a specific tree to observe and sketch each season. Students can measure its height, note the number of apples, describe its leaves and blossoms, and track changes in pollinator activity.
Skills: Science journaling, seasonal awareness, measurement.
Objective: Design a pollinator garden to support the orchard’s ecosystem.
Activity: Research native plants that attract pollinators and sketch a garden layout. Students must consider plant variety, blooming seasons, and how the garden can support pollinators throughout the year.
Skills: Ecology, garden design, research.
Objective: Compare different apple varieties and analyze preferences.
Activity: Have students taste several types of apples (e.g., Crimson Crisp, Gala, Pixie Crunch) and rank them based on sweetness, texture, and flavor. Create a class chart or graph to display the results.
Skills: Data collection, graphing, sensory analysis.
Objective: Understand the life cycle of an apple tree.
Activity: Students will create models (using paper, clay , or other materials) showing the life cycle stages of an apple tree—from seed to sprout, blossom, and mature fruit-bearing tree. Include stages where pollinators play a role.
Skills: Model building, understanding biological cycles.
Objective: Learn which pollinators are attracted to specific plants.
Activity: Create a matching game where students pair pollinators (bees, butterflies, hummingbirds) with the correct plants (apple blossoms, berry flowers, native flowers like milkweed or coneflowers). Discuss why certain pollinators prefer certain plants.
Skills: Ecology, species interaction, critical thinking.
Objective: Learn about the different types of berries and where they are grown.
Activity: Research and map out where different types of berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.) are cultivated around the world. Discuss why certain climates are better suited for berry production.
Skills: Geography, research, global awareness.
Objective: Understand the relationship between plants and pollinators.
Activity: Organize a role-playing game where students act as different pollinators (bees, butterflies, etc.) and “visit” plants (represented by stations with pictures or models of flowers). Discuss how each pollinator helps with the process of pollination.
Skills: Active learning, understanding ecosystems, teamwork.
Objective: Create a visual representation of the orchard ecosystem.
Activity: Build a diorama of an orchard that includes apple trees, berry bushes, and native plants, along with pollinators. Use natural materials like leaves, twigs, and seeds. Highlight how each component contributes to the overall ecosystem.
Skills: Ecosystem modeling, creativity, collaboration.
Objective: Explore how seasons affect the orchard and its pollinators.
Activity: Track the changes in the orchard across seasons. Focus on the availability of flowers for pollinators, how tree and plant growth vary, and when fruit ripens. Create a class timeline showing the seasonal stages.
Skills: Seasonal observation, critical thinking, ecology.
Objective: Share stories about the orchard and its history.
Activity: Create a storytelling circle where students research and tell stories about the orchard—its history, the role of pollinators, the significance of apples and berries in local culture, and traditional uses of native plants.
Skills: Oral storytelling, research, cultural appreciation.
There are a variety of berry plants and apple trees here. Scroll through the website to learn more about each one!
Pollinator plants play a crucial role in the health and productivity of the orchard. Mary Scott includes native pollinator-friendly plants, such as Milkweed, which features distinctive blooms that attract vital pollinators like bees and moths. The seeds of the Milkweed are small, black, and attached to silky strands, allowing them to be easily carried by the wind and dispersed across the landscape
Pollinating insects are just as important as pollinating plants. There are bees, hummingbirds, moths, butterflies and many more. Watch this video on the importance of bees and see.
Without pollinators, the trees and berry plants would never make it past the flowering stage and so would not be able to produce any fruit. A pollinator garden ensures that a lot of pollinators are around and that all the fruit-bearing plants are pollinated.
Plants take from the soil, but also give back to it through the materials that pass through them and into the soil. This is a complementary form of co-dependence that works better for everyone!
A prairie-style pollinator garden is as close to what nature would look like unspoiled, as is possible. Each of the plants chosen contributes something unique through a variety of features like height, water usage, wind protection, soil replenishment, and the list goes on and on.
Can you predict which trees are likely to produce the greatest yield? Does it depend on size, variety, other factors? Investigate and make a prediction.
The pollinator plants are located in one spot. What effect do you thihk this tight space has on how the plants grow? What percentage of the plants grow to full maturity each year?
Based on the observations of one or more plants, can you make a prediction for how many berries it would produce across an entire growing season?
The flowers in the pollinator garden are each unique. Each plant has its own symmetry. How many petals do you see on each flower? How do you think that helps the plant?
Objective: Create poetry inspired by the orchard environment.
Activity: After visiting the orchard, students write poems inspired by the sights, smells, and sounds of the apple trees, berries, and pollinators. They can use forms such as haikus, acrostics, or free verse.
Skills: Creative writing, sensory awareness, environmental appreciation.
What can we do to better protect our natural world?
Write about your favorite thing that lives outside. It can be a flower, an animal, a vegetable, etc.
Pick a spot to sit in the orchard and just watch for a few minutes. What do you see happening? Imagine that as the center of the world. Tell us what is going on!
Write a story or poem in which nature is the main character rather than just a setting.
Throughout the world, there are many trees that have stood in the same place for hundreds of years. Write a story about all of the historic events and changes in society that one of these trees has seen.
Many places have wonderful stories, but not everyone takes the time to document them. This 150-page graphic novel tells the true story of the MSCO! This story is about caring and committment and the civic service that makes any community a better place. An excellent read for students of all ages!
What's the purpose of an community orchard like this? People of all ages deserve spaces like this to learn from and enjoy. We aren't the only ones saying this! If you look below, you'll see the educational standards that apply to learning outdoors!
Indiana Science and Environmental Science Standards
First Grade
1.LS.1 Develop representations to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction, and death.
1.LS.2 Develop a model mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs. Explore how those external parts could solve a human problem.
1.LS.3 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.
1.LS.4 Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.
Environmental Science
Env.1.2 Understand and explain that human beings are part of Earth’s ecosystems and give examples of how human activities can, deliberately or inadvertently, alter ecosystems.
Env.1.3 Recognize and describe the difference between systems in equilibrium and systems in disequilibrium. Describe how steady state is achieved through negative and positive feedback loops.
Env.1.6 Describe the difference between weather and climate. Locate, identify, and describe the major Earth biomes. Explain how biomes are determined by climate (temperature and precipitation patterns) that support specific kinds of plants.
Second Grade
2.LS.2 Compare and contrast details of body plans and structures within the life cycles of plants and animals.
Third Grade
3.LS.1 Analyze evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms.
3.LS.2 Plan and conduct an investigation to determine the basic needs of plants to grow, develop, and reproduce.
3.LS.3 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
Fourth Grade
4.ESS.4 Develop solutions that could be implemented to reduce the impact of humans on the natural environment and the natural environment on humans.
4.LS.1 Observe, analyze, and interpret how offspring are very much, but not exactly, like their parents or one another. Describe how these differences in physical characteristics among individuals in a population may be advantageous for survival and reproduction.
4.LS.2 Use evidence to support the explanation that a change in the environment may result in a plant or animal will survive and reproduce, move to a new location, or die.
4.LS.3 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction in a different ecosystems.
Fifth Grade
5.LS.1 Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
5.LS.2 Observe and classify common Indiana organisms as producers, consumers, decomposers, or predator and prey based on their relationships and interactions with other organisms in their ecosystem.
Seventh Grade
Env.7.3 Compare and contrast the effects of environmental stressors (i.e. herbicides, pesticides) on plants and animals. Give examples of secondary effects on other environmental components.
Eighth Grade
8.LS.9 Examine traits of individuals within a species that may give them an advantage or disadvantage to survive and reproduce in stable or changing environment.
Env.8.4 Describe how agricultural technology requires trade-offs between increased production and environmental harm and between efficient production and social values.
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