Schoolyard Botany Activities

These activities were developed by Barbara Adcock, award-winning Virginia STEM educator through support from the Flora of Virginia Project and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, the Virginia Department of Forestry Urban and Community Forestry Grant Assistance Program. Inspire your students to love the outdoors, and meet your SOLs at the same time!  These 13 lesson plans, inspired by the Flora of Virginia explore plants and their connections with culture, history, and art. They offer a palette of hands-on, often outdoor activities that will interest your students in the botanical world around them. Lesson plans are keyed to combinations of K–5 SOLs in science, math, English, history, and art.

Creating a Nature Journal 

Journaling like a Botanist

Preserving Plant Specimens

Creating Herbarium from Recyclable Materials

Plant Uses Part One

Plant Uses Part Two

Changing Habitat

Using a Dichotomous Key

Creating a Dichotomous Key

Soil Mapping

Coastal Plain and Mountains Disjunction

Plant Vocabulary

Suggested Activities for Use of Outdoor Classroom

Art and Science Teacher References