Children should become aware that as they are part of a larger community, their actions toward their surroundings have consequences that will affect them later. They need to learn that every populated location contains a community of plants, animals, insects, and other natural resources. The purpose of this unit is to provide second-grade students with realistic experiences to enhance their knowledge of their natural surroundings. The lesson plans provided in this unit will help students understand basic techniques that scientist use to study and identify plants and animals. Students will apply the learned techniques in our schoolyard and our surrounding area. The first lesson will give students the opportunity to learn and practice observing through a frame as well as naming and recording everything they observe within the frame’s boundaries. When the time comes for the students to go outdoors during the second lesson, students will use a similar technique to identify living and non-living things within a limited plot area. Students will become acquainted with a study design ecologists use called plot study: students will record their findings within a one square meter PVC pipe frame. The third lesson presented in this unit will introduce students to the way scientists name and identify living things. In this lesson children will identify at least one living and one non-living thing found in their previously surveyed plot. Then later, students will go outside again to identify the different species found in their own backyard.