Tasting the Plant Parts

Part of the "Plant Parts Salad" Collection

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Goal

Students will harvest vegetables from the school garden (or another source) to make a salad that contains all the parts of a plant: leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits, seeds or nuts.

Estimated Time

45 Minutes

Setting Required

Inside

Standards

  • S1L1c. Students will identify the parts of a plant: root, stem, leaf, and flower.
  • HE1a. Students will tell how healthy behaviors impact personal health and wellness.

Materials

Procedures

  1. If there is a salad bar in the school cafeteria, the class can visit the salad bar to see what plant parts are there for them to eat.  For example:  lettuce (leaf), tomatoes (fruit), cucumber (fruit), sunflower seeds (seeds)
  2. As a class, students can create a list of ingredients that they would like to put in a Plant Parts Salad that will include a variety of plant parts so they can get a variety of vitamins and minerals. Their favorites of each plant part could be filled in on the Ingredients List sheet (example list for a Plant Parts Salad also included in document). The book The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons can be used a reference. Students may also explore the garden to see what plant parts they could harvest for their salad.
  3. If the class is able to harvest, purchase, or have donated each of their ingredients, they can work together to wash and prepare each of the plant parts to create a salad.
    For information on working with kids in a (mobile) kitchen, see Cooking with Kids
  4. When the classroom is cleaned up from salad preparation, students can taste their salad together. Remind students that when they eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, they get a variety of vitamins and minerals to keep a variety of their body parts strong and healthy (reference Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell).
    For information on composting food scraps, see Composting in a School Garden
    For information on serving and tasting the salad, see Taste Testing with Kids
  5. At the end of class, students can sing the Roots, Stems, Leaves song but filling in what they ate for each plant part. For example:
  6. “And there’s a leaf inside of me, Because ________ is a leaf that I eat.”