Science day - Plants

Today, with another family, we did a number of explorations and experiments to explore plants and how they grow.  To plan for this day we have been growing beans with different variables changed.

#1 - Demonstrating oxygen evolution during phosynthesis using Cabomba pondweed

This was such fun, we followed a number of the experiments in the linked to page.

#2  Exploring the variables affecting growth on a bean plant

Excitingly our beans planted at the same time about 3 weeks ago showed differences depending on their environment.  The plants germinated at Su's house (warmer and brighter) grew really well, whilst ours failed to thrive. The photographs give an indication of what they were like.  The bean which had been left without water failed to germinate at all, whilst the bean with water but no light germinated and grew quite well, but the small leaves which grew remained small and yellow.  The plant appeared to try hard to find light, seeking out fractions of light at the edge of the cupboard it was in.

#3 Exploring the different parts of a flower

#4 Hapa Zome - Exploring the colours found in plants

Hapa Zome printing is the process of extracting the colour from a plant by bashing and thereby transferring the colour onto fabric underneath.  It was the most wonderful satisfying experience and everyone enjoyed it, including me and Su.

Caterpillar life cycle

We have decided to observe the lifecycle of the butterfly.  So we bought a kit from Insectlore, which arrived a few days ago.  They are self contained, so they have all their food in a hardened solution on the bottom of the tub which has air holes.  At the top, when they are ready, they go up and become chrysalides and hang off the paper disc at the top, which, when they harden, we place directly into their butterfly home ready for them to emerge.

Here is their picture story.

They have arrived

 Here they are, only quite small.

 Day 2 - here we see most of the caterpillars onto their second exoskeleton and the small one in the middle on its first.  The instructions say that this repeats a number of times before they become chrysalides

Day 3

Day 4 - they are getting quite big now, and seem to have formed a complex network of silk threads on top of their food area.  There is a large number of displaced parts of food and blobs of black.  We have also noticed what looks like a discarded exoskeleton, from the largest of the caterpillars with very clear hairs on it, in a hard ball.  Today they were quite active, and Evan and I watched them.for a while.  We noticed the suckers on the back legs, of which there appeared to be 5 pairs, they move together in an undulating way.  At their front sections which moved around the most, there were 3 pairs. We saw the head weaving around presumably spinning a thread from its spinnerets.  We noted no interaction between the caterpillars, but were amused by one caterpillar who seemed to hang out at the top of the container, and when it moved back towards the food, got half way and went back up again.  We got our microscope out and managed to see them moving close up, which was pretty scary but fascinating.

Been a bit slack in photo taking, but here are some recent shots

Today - they are simply enormous, and there are plenty of "spent" exoskeletons to show their size.  We have particularly been fascinated by their hairs and how their suckers move.  It is now more apparent that they move inwards as they walk, and only the back legs have suckers, the front ones appear to be more feelers than movers - more like hands than feet really.

Growing a bean

Next month at Science Club we are exploring plants.  As this will probably require more than instant results we have decided to prepare some things to find out about.  Firstly we are doing an experiment to explore the things necessary for growth.  We planted broad beans as they are nice and easy to see the results.  We have:

Light But No Water

Water But No Light

Light and Water (twice, one each)  Here are our photos on day 0

DAY 7

Water & Light

Water NO Light

Water NO Light

Light No Water 

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After 1 week

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After 2 weeks