Apr. 12, 2006: Flowering Trees

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in the Rocky Mountain News. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers. Click here to learn about subscribing to the eEdition at no cost to you (for Colorado teachers).

Activities:

1. Create a poster showing different trees and telling why trees are important to us.

2. Find three different ways pollen gets from one flower to another.

3. Look through your newspaper and advertising inserts for ads for trees. Circle all the words and pictures related to trees. How many fruit trees did you find? How many ornamental trees (trees used for decorative purposes)? How many indoor trees? Which tree would you like to have inside or outside your house?

4. How is each of the following important to flowering trees: (a) insects, (b) warm weather, (c) pollen, and (d) wind?

5. Use resource books and the Internet to learn more about trees near you. Select a tree from your own yard or one that is popular in your community to research. Use these questions to guide your research:

• What is the name of the tree?
• What kind of tree is it?
• What other trees is it like?
• How tall does it grow?
• What type of flower does it produce?
• How is the tree beneficial to people?
  
  

This week's standards:

• Students understand the life cycles of organisms.
• Students understand the relationship between organisms and their environment. (Science: Life Science)
  
  

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)