1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading Informational Text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.5 Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

2. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?
© Gallery Stock
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?
This is a bee’s-eye view of the American Lakes camping area, in the southeastern edge of Colorado’s State Forest State Park. The region brushes right up against the northern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. Like that more famous—and busier—national park, the State Forest park features alpine meadows that burst with color as wildflowers bloom in the summer.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?1
Thinking
Why might it be important to be able to identify plants and flowers? 2
Web Search
What is the name for people who study plants and flowers? What do they do? 3
What are three characteristics of flowers that help people to identify them? 4
Find a step-by-step list that might help you identify flowers in the future. 5
Many plants and flowers have botanical names and common names. What is the difference?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?1
Thinking
Why might it be important to be able to identify plants and flowers? 2
Web Search
What is the name for people who study plants and flowers? What do they do? 3
What are three characteristics of flowers that help people to identify them? 4
Find a step-by-step list that might help you identify flowers in the future. 5
Many plants and flowers have botanical names and common names. What is the difference?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?1
Thinking
Why might it be important to be able to identify plants and flowers?
Students should brainstorm possible answers to this question. They might consider the advantages of knowing what plants and flowers are (for example, being able to take care of them properly, knowing if they are edible, being able to spot rare species, etc…) and disadvantages of NOT knowing what plants and flowers are (for example, not knowing if they’re poisonous or if they’re an invasive species, etc…) Farmers and gardeners would want to be able to plan their gardens accordingly and put plants near each other that would benefit each other, rather than compete for sun and other resources.

8. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?2
Web Search
What is the name for people who study plants and flowers? What do they do?
(Possible queries: “people who study plants and flowers”, “scientists, study of plants and flowers”)
From:
A botanist is a scientist who studies or experiments with plants. These plants may include a range of organisms, including flowers, trees and algae. Botanists are a type of biologist.

9. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?3
Web Search
What are three characteristics of flowers that help people to identify them?
(Possible queries: “how to identify flowers”, “identification characteristics of flowers”)
Summarized from
Answers will vary but may include: time of year that it’s in bloom, height, shape, whether it is alone or in a cluster, number of leaves, color, and smell.

10. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?4
Web Search
Find a step-by-step list that might help you identify flowers in the future.
(Possible queries: “steps for identifying flowers”, “how to identify flowers”)
Answers will vary. For example, this list from
Buy a good guide and read the introductory chapters to learn how to use its "identification key".
Use the key on several wild plants you already know, until you can use the key practically for any flower or plant you come across in your area.
Learn more about your local flora (the wild plants in your area) by joining a local wild flower or naturalist club.
Keep a life list, or mark the location and date you found the plant in your guide or in a journal.
5) Impress your family and friends with your botanical knowledge. Encourage them to help protect plants in their area.

11. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?5
Web Search
Many plants and flowers have botanical names and common names. What is the difference?
(Possible queries: “”what is a botanical name?” “botanical names of plants and flowers”)
From
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). The purpose of a formal name is to have a single name that is accepted and used worldwide for a particular plant or plant group. For example, the botanical name Bellis perennis denotes a plant species which is native to most of the countries of Europe and the Middle East, where it has accumulated various names in many languages. Later it has been introduced worldwide, bringing it into contact with more languages. English names for this plant species include: daisy, English daisy, and lawn daisy.

12. Can you identify the flowers seen in this image?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question. Students should think about what characteristics they learned that are important to identifying flowers and look at the image of these wildflowers to make note of them. For example, they may recognize that these flowers are found in clusters, are a deep purple, are tall, and with many small petals on each flower.
(Possible queries include “identifying Colorado wildflowers”, wildflower identification Colorado State Forest Park”)
From
Students should look at the images found to identify the flowers as Milkvetch.