How to Explain to a Child Where Trees and Plants Come From

Fill your child's curious mind with facts about how plants and tress grow.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Books - Children's - Plant And Seed Growth
• Houseplants With Large Leaves
• Lima Beans Seeds
• Potting Soil
• Plastic Freezer Bags
• Black Construction Paper
• Spiral Notebooks

1. Talk about how plants disperse or spread their seeds. Explain the four different ways plants disperse their seeds; wind, animals, water, and discharge or shooting seeds into the ground.
2. Collect seeds. While walking outside with your child, be on the look out for seeds. Look under trees. Look at the wilted flowers on a flowering plant or little fuzzy things floating in the air.
3. Try to figure out which plants the seeds you find come from. If you can't figure it out, plant them and compare the leaves that emerge to the plants near your collection site.
4. Look for examples of each type of dispersal using plants and trees in your neighborhood. Look for flowering plants and plants with burs or bristly seeds that stick to things.
5. Examine the fruits or nuts that plants and trees produce looking for seeds and the methods in which they are dispersed.
6. Perform a seed experiment using a self-sealing plastic bag, lima beans and dirt.
7. Plant the seeds and place the bag in a sunny spot. Water the seeds when the condensation in the bag starts to dry.
8. Observe the events that take place over the course of two weeks. Ask your child things like "What came out of the seed first? Second? What looks different today?"

Tips & Warnings

• Plants and trees that discharge their seeds into the ground are not common in North American, so focus on the first three types of dispersal.
• Conduct extension experiments with your plastic bag and lima beans. After your plant has grown, continue the experiment by planting new seeds and altering the conditions in which it grows. Put the bag in a closet. Will the plant grow without sun light? Water the plant every three days. Does the plant grow as fast? Place the bag under a fluorescent light. Does the light source change the way the plant grows? Don't water the seed. Can a plant grow without water?
• Print out the Mold Terrarium Experiment from the related sites to show your child how mold plants grow. Conduct similar experiments with sunlight to see how light effects the growth of mold.
• Encourage your child to illustrate or write predictions to the outcomes of your experiments.
• READ! READ! READ! Buy books about plant growth and seed dispersal appropriate for your child's age and learning level.
• Do not eat nuts or fruits from plants that you are not familiar with. Remind your child the dangers of eating from plants they do not recognize as food.