This module starts with a tour of the school's neighborhood, giving students a chance to observe the variety of plants growing around them. Then, as students grow their own plants, they observe the development of germinating seeds, measure and record growth and change, and design and conduct simple experiments to explore the factors that affect plant growth. Each Teacher Guide includes: Specific teaching and management strategies Detailed teaching sequences for teaching the first three phases of the Learning Experience (Getting Started; Exploring and Discovering; and Processing For Meaning) Reproducible masters for Student Science Notebook pages, Group Recording Sheets, and Home-School Worksheets Extension activities in science, language arts and social studies Assessment materials (an introductory questionnaire, embedded assessments, and a final questionnaire consisting of performance and written components) Science Background (provides general science concepts as they are introduced and developed in the module) to help prepare teacher Teacher and Student Resources section (annotated lists of children's books, teacher reference books, and technological aids)