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Color-Changing Cells

Trees in autumn display magnificent colors. Learn how the leaves change colors and create a vibrant depiction of the process.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Recycled Cardboard

Steps

  • Step 1

    Discuss the process of photosynthesis. Chlorophyll, a substance in plants, captures light energy from the sun and uses it to break water and carbon dioxide to create glucose, the plant's food. Leaves must constantly make more chlorophyll, but as summer turns to fall, the sun becomes less intense and production slows causing the leaves to change color.

  • Step 2

    Ask students to research plant structure and list some of the organelles they will depict, such as chlorophyll, cork cells, chloroplasts, parenchyma, etc.

  • Step 3

    Have students create a 3-D depiction of a leaf and its cells. Ask them to use markers to draw a leaf on a piece of recycled cardboard. Then have them create cells and organelles out of Model Magic. The Model Magic will adhere to itself and the carboard when damp, or it can be glued together and to the base when dry. Ask them to create an identification key in one corner to describe what they have depicted.

Standards

SCI: Convey designs through sketches, detailed drawings, or physical models to communicate ideas and solutions.

SCI: Design pictorial or graphic representations/models that are useful in communicating ideas.

Adaptations

Have students diagram the structure of a plant cell and research what each component does.

Plants "breathe out" oxygen that we breathe in. Students can see evidence of plants producing oxygen by doing the following: Place a green leaf in a clear glass of water and put a small rock over it to keep it submerged. Place the glass in a sunny spot. After about 20 or 30 minutes they will see tiny air bubbles forming at the leaf's edges.