Life Cycles Web Links
Our writers recommended these independent websites as background information and content supplements for Life Cycles lessons.
This National Arbor Day Foundation web site contains an online guide for tree identification, as well as a variety of tree-based activities for kids.
American Forests has been keeping the National Register of Big Trees since 1940. One link on this page will take you to the current register. Other links lead to pages about how to measure a big tree, big tree trivia, and where to find the big trees in your own state.
Using a tree borer and counting the rings, scientists have shown that a bristlecone pine tree named “Methuselah” is more than 4,700 years old—the oldest living organism known on earth. This site explains how scientists study the tree ring patterns in old bristlecone pines to learn about past climates and to date archeological sites.
These two articles are about U.S. specimens of the “corpse flower” (Titan Arum). In its native Sumatra, the flower can reach 12 feet and blooms every five years. The flower attracts pollinators with its fragrance of rotting flesh. In the United States, the rare-blooming flowers draw crowds.
Provides background teacher information and links on inception of human life, human life cycle, and other developmental biology topics.
This link contains directions for completing a number of arts and crafts activities related to butterflies and caterpillars. It includes quizzes about butterflies and printouts for children to color. It also contains illustrations of a wide variety of butterflies. Finally, it includes general information about butterflies and details about their life cycles and anatomy.
EPA Superfund Classroom Activities
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has a website with activities for classes. A winter activity entitled “Dress Up a Twig” teaches students the structure and function of the parts of a winter twig, and how twigs can be used to identify trees.
If you are looking for photos of flowers, visit this web site from the University of Hawaii Botany Department. After you select the name of a plant family, you receive information and thumbnail photo images for all of its members. Click on the thumbnail image, and you will get a beautiful, full-sized photo.
This link provides information on planning a garden, when to plant seeds, how to keep plants healthy, how to enter flowers into competitions, and much more. It is a visually appealing site with lots of useful information.
The Missouri Botanical Garden offers a kid-friendly web site that focuses on the life cycles of plants. It includes full color photos and drawings that illustrate the parts of a flower, descriptions of how bees pollinate flowers, and lyrics to a song, “How Do Plants Pollinate,” sung to the tune of “This Land is Your Land.” (Print the words, and sing it with your class!)
Science Made Simple: Autumn Leaves
Follow this link to a discussion of leaves at the Science Made Simple web site. Clear explanations are given of why leaves change color in the fall and how plants prepare for winter.
This link reveals the step-by-step emergence of a Monarch butterfly from its chrysalis through beautiful, close-up, color pictures.
An easy to use site that lets you identify trees by several different criteria.