The Leaf and thereabouts Thinking Biology-5 The Leaf and thereabouts The Integral School, Hyderabad

Exploring the Leaf-1 Define the leaf Describe the structure or the anatomy of the leaf Describe the functions or the physiology of the leaf The Integral School, Hyderabad

Exploring the leaf-2 Describe the connections you see between the structure and the functions- do the functions lead to the structure or does the structure lead to the function. How do they connect? Describe the internal and external environment of the leaf What else did you cover about the leaf? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Activity-1 Walk around the campus and your residential premises. Collect as many types of leaves as possible. Paste and draw them into a scrapbook The Integral School, Hyderabad

Activity-2 Note individual structural parts of the leaves you collected. Go into as much detail as you can see Use your senses to figure out the leaves you collected. Write about that experience. Can you identify the trees or plants they came from? Write about them as well. The Integral School, Hyderabad

Activity-2 Can you separate the color from the leaves? Describe how you did that. The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-1 Describe environment. What does that word mean to you? What is internal? What is external? How do you discriminate between internal and external? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-2 What is gravity? How does gravity act? How does the leaf counteract gravity? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-3 If all leaves perform the same functions, why do they differ in size, shape, color and other physical characteristics? Do all leaves perform the same functions? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-4 How does the leaf know how to do what it does? How does it know when to start, when to end? Is there a “driving force” behind the leaf? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-5 What leaves can you eat? What happens when you eat them? How is that useful? How do you eat them? What leaves, if any, can you NOT eat and why not? The Integral School, Hyderabad

Questions-6 Provide examples (up to 3 examples) from the world around you that maybe based on the functions of the leaf. Can you relate the functions of the leaf to other stuff you see around you? (Do not provide examples of how humans or animals perform) What part of your body is similar to the leaf? Is there one? How are they similar? How are they dissimilar? The Integral School, Hyderabad