Growing the Future by Teaching Children in the Gardens
[email protected]
20 Miamiview Lane, Loveland, OH 45140
www.GrannysGardenSchool.org
513-324-2873
Putting the Gardens to Bed
Grade Four
Lesson Summary
When to use this lesson
Use this lesson in the fall when the garden beds are being cleaned and composted.
Objective
Students understand how the process of decomposition impacts the Earth’s surface.
Materials
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Shovels
Trowels and Frisbees to examine compost or a wheelbarrow filled with compost
Buckets for weeds
Buckets for compost
Compost thermometer
Estimated Duration
30 minutes
Ohio Curriculum Connections
Life Science
Changes in an organism’s environment are sometimes beneficial to its survival and sometimes
harmful.
 Ecosystems can change gradually or dramatically. When the environment changes, some
plants and animals survive and reproduce and others die or move to new locations. An
animal’s patterns of behavior are related to the environment. This includes the kinds and
numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the physical
attributes of the environment.
Social Studies – Geography
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Human Environmental Interaction C9: Identify ways that people have affected the physical
environment of Ohio including use of wetlands; use of forests; building farms, towns, and
transportation systems; using fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; building dams.
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Take a look at the garden and flower beds around your class gardens. Do you see leaves?
Our compost starts from leaves. Compost is broken down plant material that give nutrients
to our soil. We add compost so soil has nutrients that were used up by the plants that have
been growing since spring.
Activity
About the compost
 In addition to adding nutrients to soil, we compost to:
√ control weeds
Revised 10/15 © 2014 - 2015 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change
them to fit your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 1
√ provide pore spaces for air, water, animals, and roots
√ attract organisms to soil that help decomposition
√ reduce soil compaction from having too much of the mineral part (sand, silt, and clay) of
soil.
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Compare the flow of energy through an ecosystem to the flow of energy in a compost pile.
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How does energy flow through an ecosystem? An ecosystem is a community of living
organisms and nonliving substances (like air, rocks, water, and soil) that make up
environment.
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What is the ultimate source of energy? The sun is the main source of energy on Earth. Earth
receives light and heat energy from the sun.
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How do living organisms get energy? Organisms get energy from their food. Food chains
are the transfer of energy in a sequence from one organism to another
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There are feeding levels in an ecosystem that consist of producers, consumers, and
decomposers.
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What are producers? Producers use a chemical process called photosynthesis to make their
own food to grow. Plants are producers.
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What are consumers? Consumers eat plants and/or animals. There are types of consumers
based on what they eat.
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What are herbivores? Herbivores only eat plants. Examples of herbivores are squirrels, deer,
cows, seed-eating birds, mice, rabbits, sheep, bees.
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What are omnivores? Omnivores are consumers that eat plants and animals. Examples of
omnivores are humans, chickens, raccoons, bears, pigs.
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What are carnivores? Carnivores are consumers that eat animals. Carnivores include
wolves, spiders, frogs, owls and other birds of prey.
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What are detritivores? Detritivores are consumers that eat dead and decaying plants and
animals.
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What are decomposers? Decomposers are consumers that eat organic matter and break it
down to inorganic matter. Decomposers are fungus and bacteria. They release basic
elements like carbon and nitrogen into air, water, and soil. These elements are important
nutrients for plant development.
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Along each level of a food chain, about 10% of available energy is transferred. Energy is not
recycled in this process. The end of the food chain is decay and the final feeding level is the
decomposers. Decomposers release inorganic compounds into the soil, which are the
nutrients used by producers. Most of the energy from decomposition is lost as heat.
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Changes in the numbers of organisms in an ecosystem can affect the balance of the
ecosystem. Every link on a food chain is connected to at least two other links. If plants, the
producers, are lost, consumers must adapt, relocate, or die. If higher-level consumers are
lost, an organism lower in the chain becomes too abundant and disrupts the ecosystem.
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These same categories are present in compost. The food chains in the compost pile
ultimately result in the chemical change of the original organic material to compost and the
Revised 10/15 © 2014 - 2015 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change
them to fit your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 2
release of elements like carbon and nitrogen. Both are in the atmosphere and both are
important to the development of plants and animals. Carbon is part of photosynthesis.
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Usually we add compost to the beds each October. This year, we are not adding compost.
We want to be sure the compost from last year fully decomposes to create a better soil
environment for our spring planting.
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This year we will be turning soil in the beds instead of adding compost to the surface. We will
bring fully decomposed organic matter and minerals like clay and silt particles closer to the
surface to help with water retention and to provide a firmer soil base for spring planting.
Then, we’ll add a thin layer of straw to the top of our beds to prevent weeds from growing.
Composting Beds
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Demonstrate the safe way to handle the shovel or trowel. The point is always down.
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Students clean all plants from their garden beds. Hill and back courtyard classes take the
material to the compost pile along the edge of the forest.
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Students dig down 6-8 inches, about the depth of the blade of the shovel or trowel to bring
the soil up to the surface. We want undecomposed organic material to be several inches
below the surface.
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When the soil has been turned, students smooth the surface to even out the surface.
Reinforce that we are not tamping down the surface. We only want a level surface for
spring planting and not compacted soil.
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Students add a thin layer of straw to cover the entire surface of the bed.
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“Food Webs – How It Works”, Science Clarified,
http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/Real-Life-Physics-Vol-3-Biology-Vol-1/Food-WebsHow-it-works.html, 06-03-11.
Volkwyn, Roy. “Trophic Levels”, The Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology,
The University of the Western Cape, 05-11-2006.
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/sci_ed/grade10/ecology/trophics/troph.htm, 10-06-2013.
“What is the Ecodome?”, Qualitative Reasoning Group Northwestern University,
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/marssim/simhtml/info/whats-ecodome.html, 1006-2013.
“Food Web”, National Geographic Education,
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/foodweb/?ar_a=1&ar_r=3, 10-06-2013.
McShaffrey, Dave. “Environmental Biology – Ecosystems”, Biology Department, Marietta
College, 03-02-2006. http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html, 10-06-2013.
Sources
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Revised 10/15 © 2014 - 2015 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change
them to fit your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 3
Growing the Future by Teaching Children in the Gardens
[email protected]
20 Miamiview Lane, Loveland, OH 45140
www.GrannysGardenSchool.org
513-324-2873
Putting the Gardens to Bed – Grade Four
In science, students learn that ecosystems can change gradually or dramatically.
This week, we discussed the flow of energy through an ecosystem, why it’s important,
and what can disrupt it. We learned that the nutrients needed in soil are the result of
the final feeding level of food chains in the ecosystem. Ask your student about the
three main groups of organisms in a food chain.
Then, we put our gardens to bed for winter. We removed plants and turned the soil to
bring fully decomposed soil to the top of the beds in preparation for spring planting.
We added straw to the top to control weed growth.
Email [email protected] to join our next gardening experience!
Revised 10/15 © 2014 - 2015 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change
them to fit your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 4