Building Out a Nature Studies Unit with Chat GPT
When my children were in their earlier years of homeschooling (ages 6-10), we frequently explored Nature with unit studies. A unit study is a thematic approach to learing that ties concepts together through multiple academic subjects. I loved using unit studies at home because it allowed us to deep dive into topics of our interest while getting a well-rounded exploration.
Before the explosion of AI, I used to spend hours upon hours researching lessons, books, and trips that I could tie into my units. Now with ChatGPT, you can use a few simple prompts to help you flesh out a nature studies unit in a breeze. And I'm going to show you how!
STEP 1: Decide Your Area of Focus for the Unit
There are many ways you can do this. I always liked to start by gathering ideas from my kids. This helped make sure I was incorporating their interests into our studies.
When my kids weren't attached to anything in particular, or when the season didn't align for practical study, I found Charlotte Mason resources like Ambleside Online's FREE Nature Studies Plan a huge help because they already pre-plan seasonal nature topics for you. For example, in their Nature Study plan for Spring 2025, the focus is on Garden Flowers and Weeds.
Its helpful to think of Nature Studies topics in terms of their seasonal cycles. This makes it easier to keep things hands-on and lively. For example, studying snow and ice storms would be very tough to do in a hands/on way during the Summertime in NJ. You would probably fare easier choosing an ocean related topic or Summer animal.
Once you have your topic of focus, we can enlist Chat GPT to help us start building out our unit (and yes, you can also ask Chat GPT for ideas but I will start at the next step).
STEP 2: Prompting Chat GPT
All good things in ChatGPT and other similar AI tools, come from prompting. Prompting is the practice of asking Chat GPT specific questions to help you narrow down what you're looking for and get the information you need. Just keep in mind that AI can make mistakes and it's important to verify the information you get.
Let's use the Garden Flowers and Weeds topic as our sample focus. We want to build out a plan around this topic so we're going to need to get information on:
learning topics
academic subject connections
activities and projects
a draft schedule to adapt for our family's needs
Prompt 1: If I wanted to build a unit study that focused on Springtime Garden Flowers and Weeds for my 2 children aged 8-10 years old, what specific learning topics could we explore in this unit?
This first prompt gave me a LOT of ideas to play with! It even already categorized them according to the possible academic subject connections that I could use. AND, it prompted me back, asking if I would like it to create a draft weekly schedule for me. Check out the screenshots from my AI response below:
Now that you have all of these ideas, you can talk about them with your kids, pick the ones you love, and start diving deeper with more prompts.
For this example, I chose to focus on the following: Flower Anatomy, Lifecycle of a Flower, Photosynthesis and Tracking Plant Growth, Identifying Common Spring Flowers, and Historical and Medicinal Uses for Weeds + Flowers.
Prompt 2: What are some engaging hands-on projects that I could include in a uit study focused on Spring Flowers and Weeds that can help children aged 8-10 dive deeper into topics such as Flower Anatomy, Lifecycle of a Flower, Photosynthesis and Tracking Plant Growth, Identifying Common Spring Flowers, and Historical and Medicinal Uses for Weeds + Flowers?
Again, we've got a lot of good ideas to work with here. See my screenshots below!
Now we're going to pick our fav projects.
I suggest making your picks with the intention that you are going to take things slowly and understanding that you may not get to all of them. Sometimes when we approach planning with too much ambition, we can put unnecessary stress on ourselves and our kids.
It's OKAY if you don't do all the things. And it's especially okay if one project is such a hit that it's all your kids want to focus on. But it's nice to have ideas ready to go in case something flops and you need to mix it up, or for when you need multiple projects at the same time to help fuel the different areas of interest for your children.
For this example, my project picks will be: Planting a Flower/ Medicinal Weed Garden, Flower Dissection and Growth Journaling, Sun vs Shade Experiment, Pressed Flower Art and Molds, and Edible Weed and Flower Recipes.
Remember, you can always add your own ideas to the list. Bots are helpful, but you don't have to let them decide everything for you. When something speaks to your heart, go for it, inshaAllah.
Now it's time to figure out our schedule!
Prompt 3: Create two sample schedules for a weekly unit study on Spring Garden Flowers and Weeds that includes the following learning topics: Flower Anatomy, Lifecycle of a Flower, Photosynthesis and Tracking Plant Growth, Identifying Common Spring Flowers, and Historical and Medicinal Uses for Weeds + Flowers. Make sure it also includes the following hands-on activities and projects: Planting a Flower/ Medicinal Weed Garden, Flower Dissection and Growth Journaling, Sun vs Shade Experiment, Pressed Flower Art and Molds, and Edible Weed and Flower Recipes. Both schedules should run for a maximum of 8 weeks with one schedule containing once per week sessions and the other schedule containing twice per week sessions. Please also suggest approximately how long each session should last if I am working with 2 children aged 8-10 years old.
Here are the two sample schedules Chat GPT gave me:
Pretty cool, right?
STEP 2: Making It Your Own
Now that you have two possible shcedules to work with that include the ideas you love, you can go in to the table and adjust whatever you want to suit your family's needs and get stocking your supplies!
Feel free to keep promptig ChatGPT if you want to include more ideas into the plan for books, movies, games, or local field trips!
If you liked this post, comment MORE below and we can create more planning posts for you. ☺️