In Search of Essential Nutrients

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center 900 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, IA, United States

After completing this lesson, students will be able to define an essential element; compare and contrast the essential nutrient requirements of plants and humans; explain why plants cannot use elemental nitrogen found in the atmosphere; and identify the sources for each essential nutrient needed by plants.

Free

Properties of Soils

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center 900 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, IA, United States

After this lesson, students will be able to list aspects of soil composition; appreciate that soils are living and dynamic; recognize that soils vary in composition; describe where nutrients in soils come from; recognize that plants take up water and nutrients from the soil; and recognize that growing crops can deplete agricultural soil of nutrients.

Free

Plant-Soil Interactions

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center 900 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, IA, United States

After completing this lesson, students will be able to recognize that plants remove nutrients from the soil; explain the roles of diffusion and active transport in moving nutrients from the soil to the plant; and relate the root and vascular systems of the plant to the human circulatory system.

Free

Plant Nutrient Deficiencies

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center 900 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, IA, United States

After completing this lesson, students will be able to recognize that plants, like people, require essential nutrients to be present in the right amounts in order to be healthy; use reference materials to diagnose plant nutrient deficiencies; define fertilizer as a type of "food" for plants; and appreciate that fertilizers are used to replenish nutrients in agricultural soils.

Free