The six sections between the star and the line are the ones you will experiment with. The other half of the garden will be called the control half, because you will not change anything about how you take care of the plants in that half. Draw a star on the worksheet in the same place as the one on your garden. This is a chart to help you keep track of the test half. Choose three sections in the test half of your garden for a sunlight test. These plants will still get the same amount of water as the control plants, but they will not get any light!
Make a cone to cover the plants: roll up a sheet of black paper into a narrow cone shape and tape the edge.
Put a piece of tape over the top to block more light. Make three cones and put them over the sections you chose to test. Make sure the cones completely cover the plants. Mark the circles on your chart to show which sections will not get any light cross out the sunlight and circle the water.
The other three sections of plants in the test half are for a water test. These plants will still get the same amount of sunlight as the control plants, but they will not get any water! Look at your chart and water all of the sections in the garden with an equal amount of water, except for the three from step 6 that do not get water.
Put your garden in a sunny spot and leave it there all day. After the sun sets, check on your plants. Carefully lift up the cones to check the sunless plants. If you see any changes, you can draw pictures on the worksheet. If nothing has changed, put the cones back on. In the morning, water them again, and leave them for another day. Continue to check and water them until you can see a difference between the plants. It might take several days, depending on how much sunlight they are getting and the type of flowers you are growing.
When you are finished with the experiment, make sure you take the cones off. The plants in the test half may need some extra-special care to get back to health! When your plants outgrow the egg carton cups, ask an adult to help you cut the cups apart with scissors and plant each one in a pot or outside in a real garden, if you have one. Dig a hole just big enough to set the egg carton cup in. You can plant the whole cardboard cup in the soil right along with the plant; it will break down in the soil over time.
Push dirt around the plant to hold it up and cover the hole. Make sure you continue to water your plants! After about a week, some little green stems should have begun to sprout up out of the soil in some of the cups. This is the first sign that your flower plants are growing, even though they had already been growing for some time below the soil, like you saw in the last experiment. Keep watering your young plants and you will be amazed at how quickly they will grow! Soon little leaves should start to appear on the stems.
Their stems and leaves probably started to look a little more yellow than the other plants. They might have wilted some or not grown as tall as the control plants. Why not? Well, plants use sunlight to create food. Plants need water and food to survive! What did you notice about the plants that received the same amount of sunlight as the control plants, but no water? Did the plants start to wilt without water, or do they just not grow as much as the others?
Most plants start their life as some sort of seed. A seed has all of the information it needs to grow into a plant, but before it can grow, it needs certain conditions to be right. The sprouted seed will soon grow a stem above the ground. Below the ground, it will grow roots. Soon small green leaves will grow out from the stem. At the top of the stem, a flower bud might begin to form if it is a flowering plant. Eventually the flower bud will open up, or bloom, into a flower.
New seeds will grow inside of the flower. Annuals are plants that grow from a seed. They flower, make new seeds and then die — all in less than a year. Some go through this cycle more than once in a year. Corn, beans, zinnia and marigolds are examples of annuals. Biennials are plants that take 2 years to go through their life cycle.
They grow from a seed and then rest over winter. In spring, they produce flowers, set seeds and die. New plants grow from the seeds. For example, parsley is a biennial. Perennials are plants that live for 3 or more years. Some, such as trees, flower and set seeds every year for many years. Other types of perennials have stems and leaves that die away over winter, but the plant continues to live underground. In the spring, new stems grow, which later bear flowers. Tulips and daffodils are examples of this type of perennial.
Scientists often use curious terms. Sometimes the terms relate to their Greek or Latin origins. Add to collection. This is just a really big word that means the plant gathers energy from sunlight and uses it as food to help it grow. Once the seed coat breaks open the seed leaves begin to grow and push up out of the ground.
At the same time, tiny hair-like roots are beginning to grow, as well. For the next several days, new sets of leaves form, and the stem of the plant grows taller and stronger.
With the proper amount of healthy soil, sunshine and water, the new plant will continue to grow, bloom and make new seeds to be scattered or gathered to be sown and germinated the following season. And so it goes; on and on and on and on and on…. Some seeds are much easier to germinate and grow than others. One of the easiest is a bean. Place five or six cotton balls that have been thoroughly soaked with water in a small clear glass jar or paper cup. Lay two bean seeds on top of the water-soaked cotton balls and lay one or two additional cotton balls also thoroughly soaked with water on top of the beans.
Over the next several days, keep the cotton well-saturated and watch for the beans to pop open. As the seed leaves begin to grow and more leaves form, remove the top layer of cotton and watch it grow! Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Our gardening obsessed editors and writers choose every product we review.
We may earn an affiliate commission if you buy from one of our product links, at no extra cost to you. CC photo courtesy of rikahi After blooms of the plant have died and the seeds are dry, they can either be scattered or gathered for planting.
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