Experiment #1
We placed two bean seeds inside a ziploc bag on a wet paper towel. We were supposed to place this in different location around the house and make a guess which one would sprout first and which would thrive and grow.
Our guess was the one in the window would sprout first, the one on the counter 2nd and the one in the closet 3rd. We were pretty sure the one in the fridge wouldn't sprout.
Here's how it all turned out....
Seed packet #1 was supposed to be hung in a sunny window.
It was the second to sprout and seemed to be doing well, but since we've been having cold weather, which in turn makes the window cold, it seemed that the cold was not good for it. The second seed never sprouted and ended up rotting. The plant from the seed that did sprout looks nasty and is getting a slight bit of mold on it.
Seed packet #2 was supposed to be placed in a dark closet. We put it in our air conditioner closet on top of the unit and so it had a warm dark place.
These were the first seeds to sprout! They had warmth and a lot of moisture! But it wasn't long till they got moldy. One other interesting thing....the sprouts never had green on them...they stayed white. (lack of sunlight)
Seed Packet #3 was placed in the refrigerator.
Nothing happened with them.
Seed packet #4 stayed on the countertop. It was the 3rd to sprout and grew so much that it was lifting the bag apart quite a bit.
Oh, this one, we placed the seed inside the wet paper towel, so I'm not sure how it would have done just lying on top??
See??
So today we potted these two seeds and are hoping to see them grow! :)
Experiment #2
Preserving and dissecting flowers.
We chose a bouquet of Stargazer Lilies at Walmart!
We were supposed to put one flower in Borax and hang one up to dry for 2 weeks and see the difference. We are only on day 2, so we'll see in 12 days how that turned out! :)
Time to dissect....
Taking off the petals....
Then we removed all the stamen's and were left with just the carpel.
Here are all the parts....
Petal
Stamen (male parts)
The little brown piece on the top is the anther...it is covered in pollen.
The "stem" is the filament. Each flower had about 6 of these.
Carpel (female parts)
The top velvety part is the stigma, and the green "stem" is the style. Pollen gets on the stigma and travels down the style to the ovary where it creates the seed.
(Most flowers only have 1 carpel)
At that bottom of the carpel is the ovary. We cut that open and had a hard time identifying the ovules, according to the description in our science book, but I imagine they are there somewhere! :)
The only part we couldn't find was the sepal. That is the green leaf like part that covers the bud before it opens. It seems that on these flowers the petals also serve as the sepal?? We have one flower that is still a bud, so we will be watching it as it opens to see if our theory is accurate.
Here are all the parts on paper....
The kids chose to draw the parts on paper for their notebooks.
It was a good day and very interesting. I remember learning about the parts of flowers in school, but I don't remember ever dissecting one!
For supper last night, the kids also made Johnny cakes to go with our rice and beans. That is a food that folks ate in the 1700's, the time period we are learning about in History! :) They were yummy....a lot like cornbread, but we put apple butter on them....Mmmmmm!!!
