We've been having a blast learning about plants in my Kindergarten / 1st Grade Student Teaching placement. This week, we learned the parts of a plant (root, stem, flower, leave) and what their role is to help the plant survive. We talked about how the stem carries the water and nutrients from the roots up to the rest of the plant. To see this in action, I put together the classic carnation experiment. We put white carnations in colored water. I just put about five drops of food coloring in the water, then mixed it around. I also put one of the carnations in water with no food coloring to show that this flower will not have a color change. For best results, ask for the flowers to be fresh!!
Here is a picture of our flowers the morning we put them in water!
Students took predictions to what they thought would happen, and recorded them on this data sheet. The experiment can also be done with celery! Some students thought that the stem and flower would change, others thought just the flower would change, and one student thought that nothing would change! They were very excited to wait and see what would happen. By the end of the day, there was a little color on the tips of the flowers, but not much. Within 24 hours the flowers will start to show a lot of color on the tips and inside of the flower!
We let the flowers sit all weekend, and this is what we came back to!
Pretty colors!!!!
We discussed what this meant about the stem and it's duty as a part of the plant. Students were very excited and truly learned from this experiment. Every time I asked them what the stem does after that, everyone immediately answered that it carries the water through the whole plant to the flower! I had students write about the experiment during writing time as they drew and described what happen. Below is my example of what I wrote!
Overall, very fun activity!! We are going to keep up flowers in the water all week and see how bright we can get them!! The best colors that showed up for us were BLUE and YELLOW (surprisingly)!
Had an awesome time with this, and hope to do it again something!
Miss Underwood
