Why People Need Plants

Students determine that plants provide people with food, clothing, shelter, and many other things that we use in our daily lives.

Grades: K – 2
Estimated Time: 50 minutes
Updated: May 23, 2024

Background

Materials Needed

For each group of 3-4 students:

Cotton fabric or cotton ball
Flower
Fruit
Maple syrup
Granulated sugar packet
Perfumed vegetable soap
Vegetable
Paper
Wooden object

For each student:

Why People Need Plants activity sheet
Plants Around the Classroom activity sheet

Vocabulary

farmer: person who owns or manages a farm, cultivates land or crops, or raises animals
fiber: thin thread of natural or artificial material that can be used to make yarn
wood: material that forms the main substance of a tree; used for building homes and other structures

Background Agricultural Connections

This lesson is part of a series called, Edible Plant Parts. These lessons allow students and teachers to examine the six basic plant parts—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds—in a unique way. Through hands-on activities, students will learn about the different plant parts, as well as how to include fruits and vegetables into their daily meals as part of a healthy diet. Students will also learn about agriculture and the people who produce our food. The remaining lessons can be found at the following links:

Why People Need Plants
Dig 'Em Up
Snappy Stems
Luscious Leaves
Fabulous Flowers
Freshest Fruits
Supreme Seeds
Edible Plant Game
Eat 'Em Up

Everything we eat and most of the things we use in our daily lives come directly or indirectly from plants. In addition to growing plants that we eat every day, farmers and ranchers grow plants that produce material we need, like fiber for clothing and wood for paper, pencils, and the homes we live in. The United States has a rich history in agriculture and continues to play a large role in feeding the people of our country. In fact, California is the largest food and agricultural economy in the nation.

Farming has changed a lot over the past one hundred years. Your grandparents or great-grandparents might have grown up on farms where their families raised much of their own food, but today most of us rely upon the 2% of people who live on farms in the United States to grow and produce food for the rest of us.

Modern technology, like tractors and irrigation systems, have made it possible for farmers to produce more food for more people on less land. One thing that has stayed the same, however, is that family farmers are still working hard to grow healthy and affordable food for all of us who don’t live on farms.

Lesson Activities

Engage

Ask students to list three items you use every day.
Trace each of those items back to a plant by drawing a picture. Examples could include a house or building which is made using wood harvested from a tree, food items such as fruit, vegetables, and grains are plants that we eat. Animals and animal products such as meat and wool can be traced back to plants because the animals eat plants.
In this lesson students will learn the importance of plants and that people depend upon plants for food, fiber, shelter, fuel, and clean air.

Explore and Explain

Activity 1:

Make space on the board or hang a piece of chart paper in front of the room. Ask students to help you make a list of things that people get from plants. List and discuss each item. Below is an example.
- Food: vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, dairy, etc.
- Oxygen: plants make this through photosynthesis
- Clothing: cotton jeans, flax, and rayon fabric
- Medicine: herbal teas, cancer treatment medicines developed from bark of the Yew tree, active ingredient in aspirin was developed from the bark of willow trees, etc.
- Paper: from wood pulp
- Furniture: lumber from trees
- Cosmetics: plant dyes, plant oil fragrances, nut shell exfoliants in facial wash, etc.
- Energy sources: biofuel, firewood, etc.
- Shelter: lumber from trees and straw bales for homes.
Review the list with students and emphasize that plants make up the base of the food chain by gathering sunlight energy and turning it into food for themselves and other living organisms. Ask students if we could go a day without plants. Refer to the list to reinforce the importance of plants. Instruct students to use their Plants Around the Classroom activity sheet to make a list of everything they see that comes from a plant.

Activity 2:

Organize students into groups of three or four.
Without telling the students the purpose of the lesson, distribute the following plant products to each group. To make the lesson more interesting, vary the items in each group.
- Cotton fabric
- Flower
- Fruit
- Maple syrup
- Granulated sugar packet
- Perfumed vegetable soap
- Vegetable
- Paper
- Wooden object
Have the groups discuss the origin of each product. For example, the piece of wood came from a tree. Have the students discuss where each item would fit on their People Need Plants activity sheet, and fill out the appropriate spaces.
After groups are finished, ask one group where they placed the vegetable soap on the chart and ask them where they think the soap came from. Continue in this fashion until you have called on each group and have discussed the origin and category for each item. Conclusion: Humans depend on plants for survival. Variation: Instead of doing the worksheet in groups, fill it out as a class while the teacher holds up an example of each item on the list.

Variation

Instead of doing the worksheet in groups, fill it out as a class while the teacher holds up an example of each item on the list.

Elaborate

Identify farmers in your community and have students write thank-you letters to them for providing the food that we eat. Ask the farmer to write back every month with a description of a few activities they are working on to produce their crops.
Make a collage of things that come from plants.
Have each student think of a plant from which we get at least three products, then share their information with a partner.
Incorporate Agricultural Fact and Activity Sheets from CFAITC.

Evaluate

After completing these activities, review and summarize the following key concepts:

Agriculture provides our basic necessities such as plants to eat, wood for building homes and structures, and plants to feed animals that provide milk, meat, eggs, or fiber.
Farmers grow these plants.

Recommended Companion Resources

Book • A Weed Is a Flower: The Life of George Washington Carver
Book • Amazing Plant Powers: How Plants Fly, Fight, Hide, Hunt, & Change the World
Movie/Video • Eat Happy Project Video Series
Activity • Edible Plant Game
Teacher Reference • Farm to Table & Beyond
Movie/Video • Food Doesn't Grow in the Supermarket!
Teacher Reference • GrowLab: A Complete Guide to Gardening in the Classroom
Teacher Reference • GrowLab: Classroom Activities for Indoor Gardens and Grow Lights
Activity • Growing Letters!
Book • Harvesting Friends, Cosechando Amigos
Book • How Food gets from Farms to Store Shelves
Book • How to Say Hello to a Worm: A First Guide to Outside
Booklet/Reader • Jr. Sprout – Healthy Eating
Teacher Reference • Math in the Garden
Book • The Curious Garden
Book • The Fruits We Eat
Teacher Reference • The Growing Classroom
Book • The Tree Farmer
Book • You're Aboard Spaceship Earth

Credits

Author

Shaney Emerson and Michelle Risso | California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom

Acknowledgements

This lesson update was funded by a grant from the Network for a Healthy California.

Executive Director: Judy Culbertson
Illustrator: Erik Davison
Layout & Design: Nina Danner
Copy Editor: Leah Rosasco

Standards

National Content Area Standards

Science
- K-ESS2: Earth's Systems
  - K-ESS2-2: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.
- K-LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
  - K-LS1-1: Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

Agricultural Literacy Outcomes

Food, Health, and Lifestyle
- Recognize that agriculture provides our most basic necessities: food, fiber, energy and shelter (T3.K-2.b)

Common Core Standards

Anchor Standards – Speaking and Listening
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

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