• Back

  • 2nd Grade

    Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants. 2-LS2-2

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • SL.2.5 - Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. (2-LS2-2)

Mathematics

  • 2.MD.D.10 - Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph. (2-LS2-2)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (2-LS2-2)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • How did a tree travel halfway around the world?

    In this lesson, students learn about seed dispersal and how some seeds must move away from the parent plant in order to survive. This activity can be found in the second grade category of Plant Adventures and Plant Adaptations. Educators will need t ...

  • How to Pollinate a Passion Fruit Plant

    The video is a “how to” video, explaining the use a paintbrush as a tool for pollination when there aren’t enough bees. The video would need to be used in conjunction with other media or first-hand observational  experiences wi ...

  • Pollination -- Buzz Activity 4H

    The activity by 4-H sets up a model using a funnel, juice, cornmeal, and pipecleaners to represent the flower’s structures and the corresponding structures of the pollinators. The material has some useful extension ideas for recording observati ...

  • Phenomenon: Buzz Pollination

    Buzz pollination is a special technique that bumbles use to dislodge pollen. This is a specialized function of the bumble bees buzzing and is needed for spreading pollen between potatoes, tomatoes, and blueberries. The video has beautiful camera work ...

  • Pollination Buzz

    In this simple lesson, students learn about the parts of a bee, construct a bee as an art project, and model a bee’s activity during pollination.

  • Deep Look: This Vibrating Bumblebee Unlocks a Flower's Hidden Treasure | Deep Look

    The short 5 minute video describes a particular kind of pollination, called buzz pollination, an adaptation of plants to select their pollinator for maximum dispersal.  

  • Impatient Flower Pod Exploding

    This 23 second video about an impatient seed pod exploding is a natural phenomena that may be used as a lead into a discussions about another way that seeds disperse.

  • How many pollinators do you see outside? Activity: Pollinator Simulation

    This activity will help students understand the role of a pollinator by having them construct a model of an insect and a model of a flower to investigate how flowers are pollinated.

  • Creating Animals that Disperse Seeds

    This lesson encourages students to use what they have learned about animals and seed dispersal to create an animal out of various materials that can hold and disperse a given amount of seed. 

  • A Sticky Situation

    This is Lesson 6 of a twelve lesson unit about pollination and pollinators. In this lesson students will learn about the structure of certain seeds that enable these seeds to be easily moved by animals. They participate in an activity to mi ...

  • The Bug Chicks-Mission:Pollination (Episode 5)

    The Bug Chicks' five minute video provides a fun, animated way of learning about the fascinating world of pollination and insects. In this video, the students observe interesting museums and habitats to look at lesser known in ...

  • Improving Our Vanilla Bean Pollinators

    This lesson is part of a series of lessons created by Jeri Faber on using the engineering design process to solve a problem.  In the Ice Scream, You Scream We All Scream for Vanilla Ice Cream, the students were challenged to design a vanill ...

  • Two Scoops Are Better Than One

    This lesson is the second day of an end of the unit task to address the Performance Expectation: Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.  This end of unit t ...

  • Building and Testing Our Vanilla Plant Pollinator

    In previous lessons designed by Jeri Faber, students have learned about how animals help pollinate flowers.  The students have also planned and designed their own vanilla plant pollinator.  In this lesson, students use the engineering desig ...

  • I Wonder - Season 1 Ep 7 - Stampylonghead (Stampy Cat) & Wizard Keen - WONDER QUEST

    “I Wonder” is a series of animated videos featuring Stampy and Keen.  In the series, Stampy and Keen investigate how the world works. On this particular episode of “I Wonder”, Stampy and Keen learn all the ways to sp ...

  • I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Vanilla Ice Cream!

    In this lesson students design a vanilla plant pollinator.  This is an end-of-the-unit task, taking about 3 days to complete.  The students will view an amazing video that tells about the problems with pollinating vanill ...

  • Bee-ing an Engineer with Wisconsin Fast Plants

    This resource is an excerpt of lessons from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Investigating Plants with Wisconsin Fast Plants Program. Students will explore Fast Plants' flowers and learn how flowers and their internal structures are related to ...

  • Sock Seeds

    The video demonstrates a simple investigation students may participate in to gain a better understanding of the external features of plants that help them thrive and survive in different kinds of places.

  • Do you have a great resource to share with the community? Click here.

Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.