Originally published in TEACH Magazine, March/April 2025 Issue
By Ronak Shah
Here in Indiana, we only get a few weeks of nice weather between the spring showers and the swampy summer, so I try to squeeze in as many outdoor lessons with my middle school science class as I can. Unfortunately, the school I worked at a few years ago had little green space beyond playgrounds and a field. There was a treeline at the edge of the property that could pass for a forest, however, so I decided to take students there for a taxonomy lesson.
Rocks, flowers, and branches carry such variety that students can write essays, take measurements, and make inferences with just a single object. For this lesson, I asked students to find a leaf, make a rubbing, categorize its form, and identify the plant it came from. Simple tasks like these can generate surprising insights, and I was eager to see what they would come up with.
Ronak Shah is a middle school science teacher in Indianapolis, and has been for twelve years. He is also a Senior Writing Fellow with Teach Plus. His writing has been
published in Education Week, Indianapolis Business Journal, Chalkbeat, IndyStar, and The Hechinger Report. His instruction has been featured in The Washington Post and in the documentary Food First.
