Tags
botany, elementary, flowers, garden, gardening, germination, homesteading, lesson plan, nature, plants, seeds, STEM
This is Lesson 2 of 6 lessons on Botany in a hands-on, activities-based class on Elementary Biology.
1. Open notebooks to flower pictures & walk around to admire them & pass out stickers. Have students take out their seeds & have everyone go around and share what seed they brought and can include something they think is neat about their seed…or they can just tell what it is.
2. Summarize the parable of the Sower from Mt. 13. Talk about planting seeds & sharing God’s word
NEED: storybook
3. Study seeds. Show a plate of seeds. What are they? Study them using magnifying glasses. Study seeds: shape, size, texture, etc.
NEED: seeds & magnifying glasses
4. Taste fruits with notable seeds. (I cut the fruit ahead of time and had a whole one cut in half to show.) & seeds. Cut fruit to show the seeds & taste them.
-Avocado: What do you think the seed/pit looks like? Show it. Let the kids tough it.
-Peach pit: Arsenic.
-Strawberries are the most famous (& one of the few) fruit with seeds on the outside.
-Coconut (optional)
–Taste some seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, peanut, etc.)
5. Identify seeds (bean & corn) and look at them under a magnifying glass. Pass out a magnifying glass, dried popcorn kernel, soaked popcorn kernel, dried bean, & soaked bean. Draw them.
- Compare the dried vs. the soaked seeds.
- Have them use their fingernails to split open the soaked seeds. What is inside?
- How are they the same? How are they different?
- Hilum = the “belly button” of the seed where it had been attached to the mother plant
A. Parts: * Look at them under a magnifying glass. What do you notice?
* Seed Coat/Testa = coat that surrounds it
* Endosperm = stored food for energy (sugar) – Seeds contain some food for the new plant to use as it begins to grow, before its leaves & roots have grown enough to supply sufficient food & water.
* Radicle = root system
* Plumule = tiny shoot = stem & “leaves” but not true leaves = means feather in Latin (Just like babies aren’t born with teeth, plants aren’t “born” with true leaves.)
* Cotyledons = food absorption & storage (becomes first leaves)
B. Monocot & dicot seeds -Discuss the difference between
àMonocot seeds will not separate into two halves. Instead, the food is stored around the embryo. Monocots have one seed leaf, which is generally long and thin, like grass. Some monocot seeds are rice, wheat, corn, coconuts and grasses.) Point out the parts of the corn seed .
à Dicot seeds separate into two halves because they have two cotyledons. The embryos of dicot seed are large while that of monocot seeds are small. Dicot seeds contain large plumule and folded plumule leaves, whereas monocot seeds contain very small plumule and rolled plumule leaves. Hilum and micropyle of dicot seeds are clearly visible while that of monocot seeds are not visible. Some dicot seeds include beans, peas, and peanuts.
C. DNA: Seeds can be very small but they contain everything (all the DNA) necessary to make a new plant, including a large tree. Half of that DNA comes from each parent delivered by pollen to egg.
D. Look at germinated plants. Point out parts. ***Point out that the radicle comes out first.***
NEED: a bean, corn kernel, magnifying lens
6. Germination = plants wake up = AWW
*Seeds are dried out. With no water, all the usual cell processes stop. But everything it needs to become a plant (the RNAs & proteins) that were formed as the seed was maturing are still there…just waiting to be activated.
*What do they need to split open their seed coat & start to germinate/grow? (wear a coat)
*Air – I need to breathe. [Breathe deeply.]
*Warmth – If it’s not warm, I’m NOT taking off my coat!
*Water [water splashed on] – Ewe! I don’t want this coat on anymore. Since it’s warm. I guess I’ll take this wet coat off.
– When the seeds become wet, they’re ready to be active again. RNA is activated. New cells form. A root & shoot soon emerge. The RNA & protein that plant obtained from its parents are the switches that renew the life in the seed.
-They don’t need soil. They don’t need the sun (as long as they get warmth from something). They don’t need any food, because God already packed that tasty endosperm! Yum! Yum! [Show a lunch box.]
— Germination = plants wake up = AWW = Air, warmth, water
-What did I not mention that surprised you? Soil? We’ll do an experiment this week about that.
-Speaking of the endosperm. Do you know what their favorite food is to eat? One the count of 3, call out your favorite food. I heard lots of candy & cookies. All that has sugar. That’s a plant’s favorite food too! Sugar! It’s different from the sugar we eat, but it’s still sugar.
NEED: coat, squirt water bottle or gun, towel
7. Germination Dramatization (“a seed waking up”): (*Do QUICKLY)
- Hand each child candy. This is the endosperm (stored food for energy) that the seed will need to grow before it can begin photosynthesis. The endosperm really is sugar.
- Also give each child 2 leaves. These will be the cotyledons (first leaves).
- Help the child completely crawl into a sleeping bag. This is the seed coat.
- The child is a dormant seed. Once it gets water [pretend to pour a bottle of water over the sleeping bag], warmth, and air, it starts to grow, or germinate.
- First the seed coat splits and the radicle (embryonic root) emerges. (Have the student stick their legs out of the sleeping bag to be the radicle.)
- In some sorts of seeds, the seed gets its nutrients from the endosperm (stored food). The stored food is mainly sugar. (Have the child eat their piece of candy.)
- The hypocotyl (embryonic stem) and epicotyl go straight up through the dirt. (Help the child stand up. Their legs are the radicle/root, their body is the hypocotyl/stem, and their hands are the epicotyls, which are holding the cotyledons/seed leaves.)
- The cotyledons (seed leaves) emerge. (Have the child stick out the 2 leaves from out of the sleeping bag.)
- The seed coat falls off and the plant grows as the taproot shoots down and the epicotyl straightens. (Have the child stand up all the way and allow the sleeping bag to fall off from the top of their head.)
NEED: 2 leaves, a sleeping bag, and a piece of candy
8. (If you’re not limited by time) Look at backs of seed packets and what the information means. (I didn’t have time for this but would have liked to have included it.)
NEED: seed packets
9. Just like scientists, let’s compare germination in and out of soil and sun. What’s your hypothesis (educated guess): Will the seeds germinate/grow if they don’t have sun and soil? Raise your hands: Yes or No.
-Plant 2 corn seeds in a wet paper towel in a plastic bag & 2 corn seeds in a cup of soil. I think it would have been better if we’d put the cups in plastic bags too so that they’d be like a terrarium. I also had them add birdseed (grass seed & sunflower seeds) in their cups so something will grow quickly.
-*I wrote the names on the cups ahead of time.* Keep these at home. Look at them before the next class to tell us what you observed.
10. Homework:
1) Draw (and identify) 1-2 flowers outside this week. Go outside & look around your yard. ***Point out on the paper where to draw it and where to put the name. Mention they don’t have to do the other side but they can if they want.***
2) Next week we’ll be studying flowers. Bring any neat flowers you have to show us.
