Botanist by Day...

Aside from arguing about a which word is a swear word, and who kissed who out at recess, hanging out with 7 and 8 year olds can be fun believe it or not! My second graders are studying plants right now. Below is a picture of our grow lab. Each kid in my class has their own 4-pack of Brassica Rapa plants sitting under flourescent lights for 24 hours/day. We water every other day.

Yesterday we used dried bees (yes, they were real, although dead) and rubbed them into the pollen of alstromeria flowers. The kids then rubbed the pollened-up bees all over their plants in hopes of cross-pollinating the plants. At first, the kids were a little creeped out handling dead bees (me too), but it didn't take long for the kids inside of us to break out and love it. We all felt so tricky to be doing such scientific experiments, not to mention recreating what really happens when bees pass pollen from one plant to another.

We'll see next week if anyone was successful in their pollinating efforts. I kind of wonder because it seems like there wasn't enough pollen to go around. At least it was a good attempt if nothing else.