Provide hands-on activities for practice and mastery. Check for understanding of concepts and skills by using relevant standard materials, i.e. worksheets, text problems, workbooks, teacher prepared exercises, etc.

Flower experiment using water and food coloring.

Objective: Students will understand the function of roots. Students will use observations from food coloring experiment to complete a graph.

Activity: Get a glass of water and put in two to three drops of blue food coloring. Put a stalk of celery or a white carnation in the glass. Have students make predictions of what will happen. Write the predictions on a chart. Students will graph the number of days/hours it took for the flower/celery to change colors. Students will make a visual representation of the time it took for the flower/celery to change colors. Compare the results. Have students reflect upon roots and their relationship to this experiment. Given a flower, students will carefully dissect the different parts. Students will then mount the parts of the flower on a piece of paper and label.

Assessment: Using students' predictions, check for understanding about the function of roots.