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The following time-honored activities can provide springboards for engaging students in exploring soils and how they "act."

What insights can a jar full of mud and water give us about life on planet Earth? Can an ecosystem within a jar teach us about the Earth's biosphere? Consider inviting your students to set up windowsill or GrowLab investigations to explore these questions.

There's something about the idea of eating flowers that captures the curiosity of children, and they can easily grow their own little garden of edible flowers in a large planter. They might even be tempted to eat salads topped with their own fresh-picked blossoms.

You'll need:

With their rich historical backstories and uses, herbs can inspire cross-disciplinary activities for school gardeners. Some examples follow:

To make your own hatching chamber for butterflies, you'll need:

• 2-liter plastic soda bottle
• caterpillar, along with leaf on which it was found
• leaves of host plant

1. Find a caterpillar on a plant so you'll know what food it prefers. Don't pull the caterpillar off the leaf, just remove the leaf from the plant. Collect several more leaves and twigs from the host plant.

Kids naturally love fragrant plants, so exploring herbs is great fun for even preschoolers. These aromatic plants played even more vital roles in earlier times than they do today, and kids will get a kick out of learning about their usefulness. In many cultures, herbs and spices were considered more valuable than gold, and people took risky journeys to find and trade them.

Many herb plants can be easily grown in a classroom light garden or windowsill, started from seeds, cuttings, or plants. Local nurseries, friends' gardens, and catalogs are good sources of seeds and plants. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Fran Ludwig, Science Consultant from Lexington, MA, reports that the plant dyeing students tried during a study of colonial crafts sparked lots of questions worthy of classroom investigation: What happens if we leave it in the dye bath longer? Will dyes work differently in different types of fabrics? What flowers might make good dyes? Will different parts of the same plant produce different colors? Can we dye other materials like wood, shells, etc.?