Second Grade Garden Lesson 3 - The Seed

Next up is investigating the seed!  Since the class already covered the parts of a seed - this lesson is going to focus on how seeds travel.

Lesson Goals:

• Understand that seeds need to be spread and that if a seeds falls straight to the ground - it would have difficulty growing.  It needs to be spread.
• Understand that there is a variety of ways that they are spread.

Overview:

• When the seeds travel away from the plant its called dissemination
• Seeds travel in different ways:
• Some seeds stick to animals with burrs or a sticky substance
• E.g. mistletoe
• Some are in fruit and get pooped out by animals
• Some travel on the wind
• E.g. dandelion which travels on the wind and gets planted when ants carry it down their hole
• E.g. maple seed
• Some travel by water
• E.g. a coconut which floats because it has special water proof fibers and air inside; it floats across oceans
• Some seeds have exploding sacks
• E.g. the squirting cucumber and the sandbox tree
• The sandbox tree has barbs on bark and its sap is poisonous to animals
• It can launch the seeds at 160mph
• Some seeds need  fire to be released
• E.g. the bishop pine tree where the resin glues the seeds in shut until a forest fire melts the resin and releases the seeds

Table 1

Materials needed:

• Styrofoam balls (about cue-ball sized)
• craft materials (feathers, string, straws, pipe cleaners etc.)

Divide the kids in pairs/groups and give each pair a ball and a handful of craft materials.  Let them each design a seed pod.  Have them discuss how their seed pod will travel.

Table 2

Materials needed:

• worksheet
• pencils
• pomegranate seeds
• cut up avocado

Allow the kids to try the pomegranate seeds and the avocado.  Discuss that animals eating seeds is one ay that seeds travel.  Ask them what animal eats the avocado.  The answer is that there is no currently living animal that eats avocado; it is called an evolutionary anachronism.  Giant Ground Sloths from long ago ate it but there isn't an animal alive that can eat the seed because it is poisonous to current day animals.

Then they can complete this worksheet:

Enjoy!