Plant Seed Activities

This past week our second and third graders have been working through a plant unit in science. We began the unit by discussing what we already know about plants and what they need to survive. Then we had the opportunity to plant our own seeds in an aeroponic unit. In this device, our plants will not grow in soil, but they will grow in a type of plant foam. They will be watered through a pump underneath them and this pump will give them water as well as the necessary nutrients that they need to thrive. Pictured below is a diagram detailing how the aeroponic tote works. So far we have seen one sprout and we hope to see more sprouts pop up soon!

After planting our seeds, we had the opportunity to become part of the PIA: The Plant Investigative Agency. Students were placed into groups and were then given seeds along with magnifying glasses. Their job was to study the seeds and figure out what plant they came from. Surprisingly, students guessed many of the plants correctly since they were seeds they had seen before, such as cucumber seeds, tomato seeds, peach seeds, and plum seeds.

After this activity, students then had the opportunity to see how seeds were positioned inside of fruit. Students were given different types of fruit, such as a pepper, peach, tomato, and apple. In groups, they cut open the fruit and observed how the seeds were arranged inside of the fruit. Students enjoyed looking at the different sizes of seeds and how some fruits had a lot of seeds inside whereas other fruit only had one seed inside.

So far we have learned a lot in our this science unit and we hope to learn even more about plants!