Botany 101

When we started learning about plants, we knew:

• Plants are alive.
• They start as seeds.
• They take a long time to grow.
• They do not move.
• They are sometimes poisonous.
• They smell good.
• People like to give them to other people.
• They are green.

So we questioned, hypothesized, observed, and read a lot about plants. Here we are at work:

Closely observing different plant parts:

 Experimenting with capillary action:

Performing the celery and carnations in colored water experiments:

Dissecting a flower to see what's inside:

Learning about how composting works from a Navigator parent/gardener:

Observing photosynthesis in action:

Can you see the tiny air bubbles forming on the leaf?

Wondering if all flowers have pistils and stamens, and counting the different numbers of stamens in different flowers. (We also did a math adventure on Fibonacci sequence this week - one of the questions we looked at -- were the numbers of stamens all Fibonacci numbers?)

Labelling sketches and flower models:

After several weeks, here's what we learned:

·         We treasure plants because:

o   Plants give us clothes, food and homes

o   Plants give us oxygen

o   Plants give us medicine

o   Plants give us a beautiful landscape

·         Without plants we would not have the tree of life – they are the producers!

·         They photosynthesize – they make their own food

·         Plants grow and they take in CO2 through their stomata

·         They take in water and nutrients through their roots

·         They absorb the rays/heat/light/energy from the sun and they make glucose with it, which is food for the plant

·         There are two types of roots – tap roots and fibrous roots. The tap root is big and long and goes deep into the soil. Fibrous roots are shallow and they have lots if root hairs. The kind of root a plant has depends on the kind of soil and the way the plant is adapted to its environment

·         Plants “breathe” in CO2 and they “breathe” out air (oxygen) through the stomata. We saw this when we put leaves under water and they made small bubbles

·         Plants follow the sun when they are growing 

·         The “tree of life,” the Western Red Cedar, gave the Pacific Northwest Native Americans everything they needed to live – they used it for clothes, diapers, tools, homes, food, canoes, fishing poles, etc.

·         Trees are useful because they give us air, houses, floors, furniture, fences, etc.

·         Trees grow and age and can live to be very old if they are not cut down

·         Plants are made up of plant cells. They have chlorophyll and cell walls

·         We eat plants and wear them almost daily

·         Plants move/spread by seeds. Seeds can travel by wind, air, water, animals, birds, gravity, getting eaten, fire

·         Xylem and phloem are the tubes inside the plant stem that transport nutrients and water throughout the plant

·         Monocot  means the xylem and phloem are scattered throughout the stem. In dicots, the tubes are in a ring around the outside of the stem. Celery is a dicot.

Time well spent, I think! 

Plants, Trees and all things Green

We learned all about plants and trees with a visit to the UW Arboretum in Seattle early this Spring.

We started out with a game that taught us about all the things plants need to grow (water, sunlight, good soil, etc.). Each student was given a card representing an essential element. We then ran from one station to another until our decent called out for us to stop. We then showed our cards to see if a seed had everything it needed to grow at that spot. WE learned that more often than not, something is missing, and not every seed will germinate.

Then we took an up close look at the many plants starting to bloom - there were many different rhododendrons and Azaleas. We started to notice the different parts of a flower.

At a creek bed, we noticed a fern unfurling, and we learned about (and smelled) skunk cabbage, which likes to grow with its "feet" in the water.

It truly does smell like skunk!

We found these beautiful leaf skeletons, and looked at how the veins could carry nutrients all throughout the leaf.

We also learned about some different types of trees, and the different ways Native Americans used them. Below are a fish hook and a spear made from different parts of trees - not only the wood, but also the bark and sap were used in tool-making.

We got to see some Western Red Cedar up close and personal - and we learned about how important these trees were to the local people. This tree was used to make everything from canoes (from hollowed out logs), to baby diapers (from well worked strips of inner bark).

We noticed the difference between the bark of the cedar and the Douglas Fir, as well as several other types of trees.

Finally, we explored the arboretum on a scavenger hunt to find producers, consumers, and decomposers (or evidence of them.)

What a way to gain an understanding of plants and how important they are.  The consensus was: Plants and trees are definitely something worth treasuring!

MaST

The mission of the Highline College Marine Science and Technology Center is:

to promote understanding, appreciation, and preservation of the marine environment through hands-on research, education, and community activities that highlights the beauty, complexity, and importance of the South Puget Sound ecosystem.

They definitely accomplished this goal and won the hearts and minds of the Gemstones and Navigators during our visit this year! We started by thinking about how energy flows through the plants and animals of the Puget Sound (a GREAT way of putting what we'd learned about food chains and the web of life into practice):

Then we learned all about plankton (Did you know the word plankton is Greek for "drifter" or "wanderer"?)

Felt the baleen of whales that eat plankton:

We collected a water sample full of plankton:

And then observed them under the microscope:

These pictures really can't capture the excitement of seeing the tiny moving creatures - some of the students could not believe they were alive!

There's a huge whale skeleton hanging on the front hall:

And a shed full of marine creatures in the back:

There were 5 or more Rock Sole (Lepidopsetta bilineata) in the tank shown below. They really demonstrated how well camouflage (one of the adaptations we learned about) really works in nature!

We also got to explore some of the other exhibits in the hall - skulls and fur of different seals and otter:

What a wonderful place to study marine science!