The Discover Nature Schools Kindergarten: Bears Through the Season introduces kindergarten students to life as a bear cub and the patterns they experience to survive as they grow in their habitat throughout the year. Students role play pushes and pulls using different strengths, build bear dens, assess how changes in their environment would meet their needs as a bear, and explore changes in precipitation, temperature and sunlight and how it impacts bears through every season.

The lesson pages below are where you can access the online digital lessons and materials for your classroom such as audio, videos, support links. To be able to access the online digital resources, you will need to create an account or log in. Many of the books listed in the curriculum are available on Epic! which offers books online for teachers to use for free.

Classroom teachers are eligible for our free Discover Nature Schools Kindergarten Teacher Kit that provides most of the classroom materials such as books, a patch of bear fur, a bear skull, thermometers, and so much more to teach the Discover Nature Schools Kindergarten Curriculum. If you are a classroom teacher and are interested in receiving the free Discover Nature Schools Kindergarten Teacher Kit, please attend one of the free Teacher Workshops in your area.

Order your free Discover Nature Schools Kindergarten Teacher Guide and Student Books today!

Our Nature Unbound instructional unit helps high school students understand the impact of ecology on Missouri and the world. It builds on knowledge students gained from previous biology classes. Most activities in this unit are designed to get students outdoors and exploring, investigating, and asking questions about immediate areas around their school.

In one activity, students explore the process of natural selection with colored golf tees in the schoolyard. In another activity, students use the scientific method to hypothesize where they would find the highest concentration of certain elements in the soil around the school. Students collect soil samples, test the soil, record the data, and analyze the results. These outdoor activities allow students to practice data collection while incorporating what they learned in the classroom.

You can explore the PDF versions of the student book and teacher guide below. Download the teacher guide to your tablet and the student book for Chromebooks.

Nature Unhooked Student Book features illustrations and activities that help middle school students understand, appreciate, and conserve Missouri’s waters. Detailed lessons in the Nature Unhooked Teacher Guide engage students in exploring the properties and effects of water in the environment, interactions in aquatic ecosystems, and the importance of practicing conservation.

Each chapter includes activities that help students understand ecological concepts through direct contact with the natural world. Objectives of the activities are centered on the Missouri Learning Expectations for Science and the activities include learning through investigation, demonstration, modeling, role-play, and argumentation.

An optional Project-Based Learning component allows students to address aquatic issues in their community. Students connect lessons about aquatic ecosystems and how natural processes and human actions affect the nature around them. Formative and summative assessments are included for each chapter, as are practices for differentiated instruction.

Through the use of the Nature Unhooked Science Notebook, students plan and carry out investigations, gather information and data, evaluate and interpret data, and reflect on their experiences as they explore aquatic ecosystems.

Explore the PDF versions of the student book and teacher guide below. Download the teacher guide to your tablet and for use in printing PBL planning sheets and extra student pages. The student book can be downloaded for use with Chromebooks.

Our Nature Unleashed Unit helps elementary students understand ecosystem connections through exploring Missouri’s ponds, forests, and prairies. The fully illustrated student book includes activities that get students outdoors and exploring, investigating, and asking questions about the ecosystems around their school.

After this unit, students will understand concepts like the difference between consumers and producers, the food chain, and the specializations that help animals survive in different ecosystems.

The Nature Unleashed unit introduces students to specific laboratory and data procedures with fun activities in their scientific notebooks. These activities guide students toward designing a field experience where they gather, record, and organize data. This field experience is a final activity where students demonstrate their scientific skills that they learned throughout the year.

Crosswalks to the Missouri Learning Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards are below. Preview our student guide and teacher guide to explore the Table of Contents and Unit Introduction as well as a sneak peak to our Lesson 1: It’s All Connected lesson where students dive into living and non-living components of Missouri – and then take that knowledge to explore their own schoolyard.

Create an account to access the full Student Guide and Teacher Guide digital books and Nature Unleashed Activity Lesson Plan Pages that includes student notebook pages, posters, and videos that correspond to each lesson.

Video Resources

Download the video playlists for Nature Unleashed.

Our Nature Unfolds Instructional Unit includes a student book titled See How the Turkey Grows, a science notebook, and teacher guide. Together they help K-2 students learn about life cycles, seasons, weather, and basic needs of plants and animals.

See How the Turkey Grows is written for young learners. Instead of a simple textbook, this realistic fiction picture book is designed for children to make discoveries and connections as their understanding of concepts unfolds.

Activities in the teacher guide and the picture book are designed to last throughout the school year, giving teachers the tools to help students experience the environment outside the classroom all year. In warmer months, the book has activities like growing flowers from seeds and observing a caterpillar turn into a moth or a butterfly. Cold month activities include measuring snowfall and discussing the color changes in trees. Since Nature Unfolds meets state learning goals, students will learn required topics and be able to apply the information to problems and real situations.

Correlations to the Missouri Learning Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards are included as separate publications for download.

Explore the PDF versions of the student book and teacher guide below. Download the teacher guide to your tablet, or print student pages if you aren't using the science notebook.

Nature Revealed is a diverse collection of learning experiences that help young children discover the relationship between nature and everyday living. Nature Revealed focuses on hands-on learning with 89 seasonally based activities organized through 15 learning blocks which include: music, art, reading, writing, math, science, music, outside, pretend play, nutrition, manipulatives, group, large-motor, blocks, and field trip. 

The teacher guide meets Missouri Early Learning Standards (MELS) and Project Construct. Nature Revealed is endorsed by the DESE Office of Childhood as an Approved Preschool Supplemental Science Curriculum. Clock hours are available through a free training. Contact your local conservation educator to request a workshop. 

Both teachers and parents can use the activities to stimulate children's sense of wonder through the provided storyboard characters and puzzles, as well as other learning block activities. Preschoolers will learn important lessons including:

• Fall 9 Nature Jar: Collect seeds and find their value to people and wildlife
• Winter 8 Track Puzzles: Match animal with their tracks.
• Spring 8 Explore a Log: Discover how decomposed trees contribute to soil
• Summer 10 Jo's Choice: Explore the meaning of "conservation"

The teacher guide also has fun activities like the Family Calendar of Activities, and Thematic Lesson Plans. These lessons support preschoolers observing and respecting nature, which can help Missouri children become conservationists for life.

A PDF version of the teacher guide, puzzles, and storyboard characters are listed below. For a printed teacher guide, attend a teacher workshop. Contact your local conservation educator to arrange a training today!