Crowding Can Be Seedy

• This well-designed lesson plan introduces students to the concepts of population density and carrying capacity using a kinesthetic game, reflection questions, and an experiment. 
• The resource includes an instructional video for teachers, suggestions for differentiation, and a student worksheet for recording data and answering questions.
  

Positives

• This fun and engaging lesson will appeal to kinesthetic, visual, and auditory learners. 
• The instructional video walks teachers through the entire lesson, including the Sprouts Game activity.
• The discussion questions give students an opportunity to understand how population density affects plants and humans.

Additional Prerequisites

• Teachers should plan ahead for the experiment portion of this lesson because it takes 30 days for the seeds to sprout and grow.
• Teachers must gather the materials needed for the radish growing experiment and a long piece of string for the game.
• Teachers must sign in to download the lesson plan.
  

Differentiation

• For the experiment, the resource suggests that kindergarten students can count the number of leaves on the plants and draw pictures to show the plant growth, first graders can use an object such as blocks to measure the plant growth, and second graders can measure the plants with a ruler.
• As an extension, students could talk about the health benefits of eating vegetables and then start a school garden or eat the radishes for snack time.
• Other resources on this topic include this activity on terrestrial biomes, this PBS video on habitat basics, and this lesson on scarcity.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.