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Sugar Maples
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Lesson Plans and Activities On the Web
Can your students key out a Sugar Maple with this on-line dichotomous tree key for kids?
The National Arbor Day Foundation has a wonderful website. In addition to learning games for kids to do at home or school, there are lesson plans, community ideas, and a field guide to common trees. Kids will find fun learning games at Carly's Kids Corner.
University des Arbres -This Canadian site (in english!) is rich with the biology and ecology of trees. It is interesting for both kids and adults. Tree life cycles and biology, biodiversity and habitats . . .
Minnesota Teacher's Guide to Arbor Month curriculum has activities for grades K-8
Check back soon for a leaf color graphing activity which will be linked here!
Downloadable Lesson Plan(s) Developed at Wolf Ridge
Using a Key to Identify a Tree
In "20 Questions", students learn how dichotomous keys work and some tree terminology, then put those ideas to work as they use an on-line interactive pictoral key to identify the willow and potentially other plants.
Activities In Published Curricula
The Minnesota DNR has created a K-9 curriculum about trees called "Where are All the Trees?" It includes lots of kid and teacher friendly lessons, student pages to run off, etc. A 44-page "Minnesota Primer" of tree biology, forest history, and forest management can be used by teachers for background or midd le school students as reading text. Lesson plan units include "What is a Tree?", "It Takes All Kinds - Exploring Different Kinds of Trees, "What is a Forest," "Standing Proud - Meeting Our Minnesota Trees," and "People and the Web - Living Together and How it Works." Call (651) 296-3406 for more information.
Activities in the Project Learning Tree Environmental Education Activity Guide.
(activity 78)A two part lesson: a fall scavenger hunt and a simple green leaf color separation experiment.
(activity 64)Designed for grades K-4 and includes leaf collecting and comparison and instructions for several crafts including leaf print t-shirts, cherokee leaf printing, and batik, rubbings, spatter prints, and pressed leaves.
(activity number 68)Teaches using leaves, twigs, flowers, fruits, and seeds to identify a tree.
(activity number 61)Asks students to first draw a tree from memory, then draw it in detail as they observe an actual tree. Students will learn tree parts and patterns of growth as they draw.
(activity 21)Includes ideas for helping students observe and get to know a specific tree over a longer period of time. It also included a tree "flip up window" master which younger students can make and color.
Related Wolf Ridge Classes
Explore the world of plants! Learn about how plants live and grow, why they are so different, and how they are alike. How do plants and animals help each other? Depending on the season, you might also make foods, drinks, perfumes, or dyes from the plants you find. More about our Plant Study class.
You can also take the Trees and Keys class at Wolf Ridge. During Trees and Keys class, you will travel through the trees and keys course, visit trees and see how many you can correctly identify. At the end of class, you will receive a tropical forest tree seed to plant to remind you of the value of maintaining biodiversity.
Hike away from the main Wolf Ridge campus through the woods and across the boardwalks to our Forestry Building outpost. You'll pack a lunch and be gone for the day. During the Forest Ecology class, you'll hike through a variety of managed forests, getting a chance to do some forest management along the way, beginning with a try at an old-time cross cut saw, and ending by taking on the role of a forest, wildlife, recreation, or water management specialist.
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