Water Wise Gardens

Key Topics: Agriculture, Irrigation, Flooding, Drought, Chumash

Grade Levels: 3-6

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Science Framework

Spanish Lesson Plan

Lesson Video

Lesson Overview:  

Students will gain an understanding of how the Chumash interacted with and fed themselves with the land around them. They will then talk about how we currently use the land to grow food using irrigation systems. We will contrast the pros and cons of different methods with a focus on creating water wise gardens. Additionally, they will design their own watering system based on what they’ve learned

Suggested Activities & Learning Objectives by Grade:

• 3-ESS.C – Human Impacts on Earth Systems: Human activities in agriculture, industry, and everyday life have major effects on the land, vegetation, and water.
• 4-LS .C – Adaptation: For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.

Essential Question(s) that Connect CCCs and SEPs:

• How could we change the structure of a campus irrigation system to benefit plants in the summertime? (Structure and Function; Planning and Carrying out Investigations)
• How does a particular irrigation method solve or cause a problem? (Systems; Asking Questions and Defining Problems)
• What is the function of the different irrigation methods we are learning about (sprinklers, drip hoses, emitters, etc)? (Structure & Function; Asking Questions & Defining Problems)

Vocabulary:

Agriculture- The art and science of producing crops and raising livestock

Irrigation- How farmers apply water to their crop

Adaptation- When something changes over time

Drought- When there is a lack of precipitation(rain) over a long period of time.

Materials:

• Printouts or copies of your garden map - find examples here
• Pencils
• Clipboards for each student (Or ask teachers to have students bring something hard to write on)
• Flow of Water Series Garden Journal (optional)

Prep:

• Create your garden layout worksheet. Include all of the beds and in-ground planting areas. Examples

• Photocopy the garden layout - one for each student or have students work in groups of two or three.

• Gather clipboards and pencils or see if a teacher can loan you some.

Activity Procedure:

Engage:

Have humans always farmed? Actually humans have been around a lot longer than they have been farming. The native people of this part of California, Chumah and Salinan peoples, hunted and gathered as a means to collect sustenance from the earth. Does anyone know what one of their primary sources of food was? Acorns! In order to hunt and gather successfully these peoples had to move around a lot.

Think, Pair, Share: Why do you think people may have started farming instead of hunting and gathering?

To be able to stay in one place! What is one thing every farm or garden needs to be able to grow food? Water! Today we will be exploring how farms and gardens get water to the plants they grow.

Explore:

Tour the garden’s irrigation system. Turn the water on and point out different features such as drip irrigation, emitters, sprinklers,

Sentence Frame: We have an __________ ________ to efficiently water the plants in our school
        Garden. (irrigation system)

Explain:

So you can see that in order for us to be able to farm, we often use plastic tubes called irrigation lines to bring water to our crops. But some plants can grow without humans irrigating them!

Think, Pair, Share: Can you spot anything in the garden or nearby that looks like it’s growing without irrigation?

A lot of native plants, like oak trees and sages, don’t need extra watering. How do they get their water? That’s right,  from the rain! These plants are adapted (that means they’ve changed over time) to survive with very little water for much of the year. Now think about the lettuce (or another example you’re growing) in our garden, it can’t grow without irrigation unless it’s raining regularly.

Thumbs up/down: Does it rain regularly where we live?

That’s right, since it doesn’t rain all year here in California, we need irrigation systems in our gardens and farms to help our plants grow. Still, it’s always a good idea to include native plants that can handle droughts or dry seasons.

Today’s activity will be to design your own garden! You’ll choose what to grow, decide which plants need irrigation, and figure out how you would water them.

Activity: Garden Irrigation Design

1. Review your Garden Agreements
2. Pass out clipboards with print out and pencil.
3. Explain that you are looking at a garden from above as if you were a bird flying over it and looking down.
4. Tell students they can decide what sort of irrigation would be best with the different crops. Ask them to think beforehand what things they might use sprinklers on (small plants planted close together). Have them consider where the paths are and try to design their systems so it doesn’t block the walking paths or use too much plastic.
5. Walk around to help students with their designs.

Reflect:

Invite students to share their designs. What are some ways you learned to save water today?

Extension Activities:

• Mulching with different types of mulch
• Actually set up irrigation in the garden with the students
• Do the activity in the garden journal