ESL WORKSHEET - Poisonous plants

LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

DEADLY PLANTS

LinguaHouse

Feb. 3, 2022

Level: Upper-Intermediate (B2-C1)
Type of English: General English
Tags: Health and Well-being; Environment and Nature; Animals and Plants; 18+ Years Old; 16-18 Years Old; Video Talk
Publication date: 02/03/2022

Students watch a video about an English botanical garden that specializes in poisonous plants before completing reading and speaking activities. The lesson also supports vocabulary development and offers a window into gardening and the natural world in England. The lesson concludes with a choice of two writing activities to complete as homework: a review for a website or a safety poster. It also includes a short optional extension task related to the skull and crossbones symbol. (by Stephanie Hirschman)

• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Trevor Jones: Atropa belladonna will kill you. Datura will put you to sleep, forever. Aconitum will kill you. Laurel will produce cyanide and kill you.
Every plant here in the Poison Garden is poisonous and has the ability to kill you.
My name’s Trevor Jones and I’m the head gardener of Alnwick Garden. This plant is giant hogweed. It will get up to around about eight foot high. It’s phototoxic, so it will burn your skin and give you blisters for up to seven years.
This garden is set in the war garden of the old castle in Northumberland, U.K. We’d have around about ninety-five plants and we’re adding to the collection all the time.
This plant is aconitum, or monkshood. Wonderful blue flowers, but the whole of the plant is poisonous. The berries crushed up and fed to you will kill you. The leaves themselves will kill you also, as will the root and the stem.
We have to obviously maintain the garden, so we have to tend the plants, and when we do that we have to be very careful of the way we operate, so we have to cover some of our skin when we deal with particularly dangerous plants.
This plant is laurel. It produces cyanide, and we all know what that’ll do to you. So, it was the brainchild of the duchess, the Duchess of Northumberland, so rather than having a herb garden, she decided to create more interest and have a poison garden.
They’re very, very common plants. In fact, a lot of them are what we call cottage garden plants, and they’re grown in many people’s gardens, but people don’t know how harmful they actually are. This is atropa belladonna.
Four berries are enough to kill a child. People are intrigued by poisonous plants. I’m often very worried when they come out because many of them will be growing these plants at home, and they don’t realize the powerful impact plants can have on us as humans.
Off-camera voice: Is it something that you find fascinating?
Trevor Jones: Definitely.
Off-camera voice: Why?
Trevor Jones: It’s a good way to get rid of your wife. I don’t know.

Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/general-english/deadly-plants. Accessed on July 2, 2024. © 2008–2024 LinguaHouse.com. All rights reserved.