1. Supplementary information for teachers
Rooted in NC: Does the environment influence plant growth and survival?
Supplementary information for teachers

2. For the plant growing portion of this
lesson, you will grow Fast Plants®.
Information about these plants, including
how to order seed and lifecycle can
be found at:
For plants grown indoors, this will take
about 14 days from planting to flowering
under ideal conditions. Because they
will not get pollinated, they will not set
seed.

3. Soil types for NC Coastal Plain Coastal plain soil is very sandy.
To make this, use a 3:1 ratio
of sand to potting soil.
Sand
Potting soil
Piedmont
Piedmont soil has a high
Clay content. To make this,
use a 3:1 ratio of clay to
potting soil.
Clay
Potting soil
Mountains
Mountain soil is rocky.
To make this, use 1:3
Ratio of pebble/rock to
potting soil
Potting soil
Rocks
Pre-mix soil types and MIX THEM UP so they do not appear layered

4. Mountain soil Piedmont soil Coastal plain soil Image from:

5. Piedmont “Cecil” Soil The official state soil of NC!
For more information:

6. This is probably more detailed than necessary BUT can be used for
a basic layout of a plant, just cover the
parts you don’t need
We suggest that you draw a more
cartoonish plant to encourage students
to draw their observations into a
science notebook OR observation
pages (worksheet style, bound or
stapled together)
Image from:

7. Pests!!
Wireworm image:
Caterpillar image:

8. Images of caterpillar damage to cole crops
Cross-striped cabbageworm caterpillar on cabbage
Image:
Cabbage looper caterpillar
There is a lot of relevant information on cole crop pests here:

9. Wireworm damage wireworm on onion On carrot
All of these images are from:
Info on damage in NC tobacco can be found here:

10. APHIDS
Aphid damage is really hard to imitate. If you are near a university or friendly
with a farmer, see if anyone has green peach aphids that you could use to show
students what they do. If that is not an option, here are some cool pictures:

11. More aphid fun
Youtube video of aphids feeding on a plant STEM- new area for damage… ask the students what this might mean for the plant
There are a LOT of predators that eat aphids, below is a link to a fun video showing a lady beetle eating aphids:
If your students enjoy the lady beetle action, there is some neat information, including
additional materials and info on how they can be citizen scientists and report lady
beetle sightings here:
*This is one of this lessons’ author’s FAVORITE citizen science projects 