Let’s Get it Started - Growing a Garden from our Food?!?!
Welcome to the Virtual Science Education blog post. People are sending children PDF packets and online videos and calling that science. We prefer actually doing science with, well, anybody - your children, your parents, your neighbors, your friends, or for some stimulating individual time - to explore the world around you and think about science together.
What can we do at home to have fun with science?
Children love talking and reading science with people in their community. Often they are not only excited by the world around them but bursting with questions about the things they see that just don’t seem to make sense just yet. With the potential for students to be learning virtually or just spending more time at home, there is a need for parents to be able to find high quality and engaging science resources to stimulate and encourage learning at home.
But science is more than facts that old people figured out a long time ago and put into books - science is exploring and asking questions and being wrong and…having fun. So, let’s think about one possible way to bring real science home.
flour, pasta, & vegetables - wait, what is for dinner?!?!
We are all in a place where food is valued more than ever - flour, pasta, even yeast is tough to keep on the shelves in the grocery store. And these are things that stay good for a VERY LONG time in our cabinets or pantry without refrigeration or any special care.
Vegetables are a different story. Some very random vegetables are freely available at the store but who knows what to do with a lotus root or a bunch of broccolini?!?!? Even if we did, while honoring social distancing - we want to be able to limit our trips to the store and figure out what we can grow on our own!
where do seeds even come from?!?
Let’s take a moment and think.
When was the last time you saw seeds? Where were they? A little paper bag? A cup? Inside of a sunflower? In a bag of bird food?
Lots of fruits and vegetables have seeds in them. Using your first sheet (download below), brainstorm what fruits and vegetables you think might have seeds inside. DO NOT open up any of them - it is important to conserve your food! We will explore this later!
Right now we are just sharing what we think will be inside. For example, you might say “I think the lemon will have seeds in it but not the cabbage…”
Predictions are important because they help us think like a scientist.
The Big reveal - what do these seeds look like?
Ok so now Gram is cooking - or mom is, maybe dad is? Someone is cooking - and they cut open a fruit or vegetable. GET YOUR NOTES!!
What does it look like inside? Are there anythings that look like seeds? How would you describe the seeds? Pointy? Small? Round? Big? Slimy? What color are they? Do they blend in? Do they stick out? When someone opens up the fruit or vegetable do they just fall out - or are they hard to get out??
With help - see if you can collect all the seeds you can and take a moment to write down what you notice about them. Save these seeds for later!
Okay - so we looked at them, now what do we do??
Now that we have collected a bunch of things that we think might be seeds, we want to know for sure. We could just Google it or ask our friends or family - but that isn’t science. We need to figure out a way we can test!
On your next sheet, brainstorm a list of what you think might be needed to get these possible seeds to grow.
Think of this as building your list of the materials you might need to conduct an experiment. Maybe you are thinking the seeds you found in your apple might grow in Play-doh, or in crushed up leaves from outside - be creative but keep in mind that we need to make sure we do not waste our resources right now!
After you come up with your list - check out the pictures of this tomato and this strawberry. What is going on with these two things?!?! How could this be happening?
Cause and Effect - why do some seeds grow while others do not??
Turns out - lots of our fruits and vegetables have seeds in them, but barely any of them grow without help from us!
Now it is the time to experiment! Using the list you brainstormed about your seeds, set up your seeds and see if they grow. Can you get a cob of corn to grow? What about an avocado seed? What about dry seeds you find in a bag in the cabinet?
Do only seeds grow? What about other things from my house?
Ok - so we are thinking seeds have something in them that help them grow. But what about other things? Trees keep growing for years after they grew out of a seed - but that Christmas tree we cut down and brought inside doesn’t seem to grow at all.
Or those beautiful flowers we gathered on our walk and put in a vase on our table - they only last a couple days and then they don’t seem to do so well anymore. Why do some plants grow well while others seem to have a limit?
Can we get some extra growth out of some of our other plants??
We’re trying to get out food to last longer, and we have experimented with seeds - but what about other vegetables?!? Can we get extra growth out of our lettuce? What about our celery? Or potatoes? Or onions?!? Get crazy and see what you can re-grow!
Post written by Chris Zieminski and TJ McKenna for ngssphenomena.com
Comment below, or email ngssphenomena@gmail.com.
