Science Project

ZBoy has to turn in a science project tomorrow. He's had this assignment for a week. After he got home from the city pool late this afternoon, he remembered that he had to do it. (ARGH!)

He had his choice of three projects:
1 - Look up the many different ways that people around the world use roots.
2 - Describe how a flower makes seeds.
3 - Describe the life cycle of a plant starting with a seed being planted.

He chose the life cycle of a plant. Darling Man sat down with him to talk about what the steps of the plant's life cycle are, but after several frustrated minutes and a yawn from ZBoy, he realized that he was giving Z a college-level botany lecture and couldn't figure out how to make it a 3rd grade level bucket of information. He was really tired from working 28 out of the previous 48 hours. That's more than three working days crammed into two 24-hour days. He wasn't making much sense even to me.

So I took Z upstairs to the computer room and we googled Life Cycle of a Plant. I printed out a picture of someone's idea of the life cycle. Kinda dry...

There's a second page with more of the cycle on it, but it's got the basics there. Still - the wording wasn't exactly 3rd grade. So I tried making my own cycle pictures to show him.
And we talked about what I was drawing as I drew it. What the processes were called, what happened or how it happened when one of the processes took place. He GOT it!

And got right to work on his poster...

First the bee takes pollen from a "boy" plant and when he lands on a "girl" flower, he leaves some behind. That's called pollenation, which starts the seeds developing. The seeds then are distributed by wind, or birds eating them (and pooping them out somewhere else), or being moved by some other method. The seed lands wherever it winds up and after it's absorbed water, warmth and some time has passed, the seed splits open and a new plant sprouts out of it. This is called germination. The plant grows leaves and/or branches and a root system and finally matures to the point where it is ready to give/receive pollen and the whole cycle starts again!

He did a great job and I'm very proud of his work. AND it's ready to turn in tomorrow - ON TIME.