Year 3 - Science
What plants need: plan
What plants do and what they need
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit explores the functions of different parts of flowering plants, including roots, stems, leaves, and flowers. It investigates plant requirements for growth and the role of flowers in pollination, seed formation, and dispersal. Emphasis is on practical enquiries, and data presentation.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to ask relevant questions about what plants need and plan a comparative test to answer them.
Key Notes
- Plants are living things and need the right conditions to grow and stay healthy.
- Plants need air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow.
- Scientists can investigate what plants need by observing plant growth when requirements are removed.
- A comparative test investigation can be carried out to investigate plant growth.
- In a comparative test investigation, variables must be controlled so only one thing is changed and another is measured.
Vocabulary To Learn
- plants: A plant is a living thing that often has roots, a stem and leaves.
- conditions: Living things need certain conditions to grow and be healthy.
- requirements: The requirements of something are the things it needs.
- comparative test: In a comparative test, the thing that is being changed has labels, such as the types of materials.
- variables: The things that can be changed, measured or kept the same in a comparative or fair test.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Pupils may not consider plants to be living things because they do not move from place to place or have 'babies' in the way that many animals do.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the scientific idea in this lesson using two key points.
Plants are living things and need the right conditions to grow and stay healthy. Plants need air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room to grow.
2. Define this scientific word and use it in context. 'plants'
A plant is a living thing that often has roots, a stem and leaves. Include the word in a full scientific explanation, not as a single label.
3. Correct this common scientific misunderstanding.
Mistake: Pupils may not consider plants to be living things because they do not move from place to place or have 'babies' in the way that many animals do. Correction: Explain that plants are living things; we know this because they can move, grow and reproduce like other living things can.
More Lessons In This Unit
- Comparing what plants need in different habitats Study Guide
- How water is transported in plants Study Guide
- Life cycle of a flowering plant Study Guide
- Nutrients and fertilisers for plants (non-statutory) Study Guide
- Plants without roots Study Guide
- Pollination Study Guide
- Seed formation and seed dispersal Study Guide
- The function of flowers Study Guide
- The function of leaves Study Guide
- The function of roots Study Guide
- The parts of a flower Study Guide
- What plants need: do Study Guide
- What plants need: final review Study Guide
- What plants need: review Study Guide
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