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Materials
- Plant Journals
- markers or crayons
Key Science Concepts
- Plants have different parts: roots, stems, leaves, and fruit.
- A tree is a very large plant. There are many different types of trees.
Vocabulary
Encourage children to use science process words such as experiment, observe, describe, compare, predict, and results.
Directions
Remind children that it’s been about a week since you set up your two experiments: one testing whether seeds need sunlight to grow; the other testing whether seeds need water to grow. Have children look back at their Plant Journal drawings of the two experiments. Explain that it’s now time to look at the results from the experiments.
Plant Needs: Sunlight
Gather around the sunlight experiment and ask for a volunteer to explain the experiment. Why is one plate of seeds uncovered and one covered by a paper plate? What will this show us? Then take the plate off the covered seeds and ask children to compare the grass seeds on the two plates:
- What do you notice about the grass seeds?
- How would you describe the seeds that got sunlight? How would you describe the ones that didn’t?
- Have children look very closely at the seeds that were covered and ask if they see any signs of growth. (Depending on what they see, children may conclude that seeds can still grow even without sunlight).
- What do you think we learned from this experiment?
Plant Needs: Water
Next, look at the water experiment results and ask someone to explain the experiment. One bag of seeds received water and the other did not. Ask:
- What do you notice about the grass seeds?
- What happened to the seeds that got water? What happened to the ones that didn’t?
- What do you think we learned from this experiment?
Finish by having them draw pictures in their Plant Journal of the results of the two experiments.
