Plant Processes and
Food Energy
4th – 5th grade
Timeframe
3 - 5 class periods
Objectives
Science
(K-5).9 & (K-5).10: Organisms and Environments
Math
Probability and Statistics and Measurement
Materials
 Student journals/pencils
 Potato plant in pot, seed potatoes, potatoes, carrots, peas in pod, corn on cob
 Pictures or samples of potato, carrot, peas, and corn plants
 Dry erase board with colored markers
 Index cards
Engage: Potato plants have needs (indoor classroom)
What do you think plants need to grow?
 Students develop a list of the five needs of plants. (soil, water, air, sunlight, space)
 Why do plants have these needs?
 What else is required for plants to grow, reproduce, and make potatoes?
Explore: Potato plants make food (indoor or outdoor classroom)
What do plants do with water, soil, air, and sunlight?
 Student pairs discuss, sketch, and develop and explanation for one of these questions.
1) Where does the potato plant get the stuff to make a potato? (air, water, soil,
sunlight)
2) What kind of nutrition do potatoes contain? (sugars stored as starch)
3) What connects the stuff in the potato together? (sunlight energy in bonds)


Teacher guides the class through a discussion based on the input by student groups. Key
words are collected and linked to big ideas.
Photosynthesis- Water and carbon dioxide in the presence of sun energy within plant
leaves produces sugar.
Lessons written by Angela Buffington
Copyright  2012 REAL School Gardens
Sugar is plant food, stored energy, large amounts of sugar can be linked together to
form starch.
 Respiration- Sugar in the presence of oxygen within the plant leaves is broken to release
energy.
 Carbon, oxygen
 Photosynthesis, respiration
 Starch, sugar, food, energy
 Store energy, release energy
Explain: Connecting potato plant needs, parts, and energy (indoor classroom)
How does the potato obtain its needs?
 Diagram a potato plant on the board, with seed potato, roots, stem, leaves, tubers.
 What happens in the leaf? Collects sun energy, performs photosynthesis to produce
sugars. Performs respiration where sugars can be broken down to release energy.
 What happens in the root? Collects water and soil nutrients to plant.
 What happens in the tubers? Sugars are collected and stored as starch.
 What happens in the stem? Transports water and soil nutrients from root to leaves.
Transports sugars from leaves to tubers.
 In their journals, have students draw a seed potato with one plant sprouting and one
tuber growing above the seed potato. Add arrows to show where sunlight, air, water,
and soil nutrients enter the plant. Add labels for sugar, starch, photosynthesis, and
respiration.

Elaborate: Plants as sources of food (indoor classroom)
What other plants produce food from their needs?
 Using knowledge gained from Explore and Explain, have students link sugars and starch
to other foods. List with a partner other plant parts that are sources of starch and
sugars. (corn on cob, watermelon, carrots, peas in pod)
Evaluate: Plant needs and processes to produce food (indoor classroom)
How do plant needs become our food?
 In a group of three or four students, construct a diagram, story, or narrated skit that
shows how a plant obtains its needs, produces starch or sugar, and transports the starch
or sugar to the part that we eat.
 Share explanations with the class.
Sources:
5E Overview and 5E Key Components
http://www.roundrockisd.org/index.aspx?page=3211
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/rowcrops/pp877w.htm
Lessons written by Angela Buffington
Copyright  2012 REAL School Gardens