Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary…

1. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary… Life in a Square Foot Garden Tracie Ambrose Education 373 Fall 2009

2. Square Foot Gardening • This Summer I built a Square Foot Garden

3. I started with a wood box.

4. http://motherbynature.ca/2009/05/my-square-foot-garden-building-day-1/http://motherbynature.ca/2009/05/my-square-foot-garden-building-day-1/ • This website shows the process of building a Square Foot Garden better than I could explain it.

5. At Last! • After drilling thorough my finger, banging my thumb, and making twenty-five trips to Menards, Lowes, Wal-mart, and Rural King, I was finally able to plant my garden.

6. Questions • How do the plants grow vegetables? • Why do we need bees? • How do seeds get from one place to another?

7. Standard 4.4.3 • Observe and describe that organisms interact with one another in various ways, such as providing food, pollination and seed dispersal.

8. Definitions • Pollination-- “noun. Botany. the transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma.” • Anther-- “the pollen-bearing part of a stamen” • Stigma(stamen)-- “the part of a pistil that receives the pollen.” • Pistil– “the ovule-bearing or seed-bearing female organ of a flower, consisting when complete of ovary, style, and stigma.” • Seed dispersal—the movement of seeds from the mother plant to other areas. • Organisms—living things • Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pistil, Dictionary.com LLC, revised 2009, accessed 09/08/09

9. Most plants produce a flower that attracts insects. Usually there are two types of flowers—a male and a female. • The shape, color, and smell of the flower attracts insects. • Insects find the flower, eat the nectar, get pollen on their bodies and transfer the pollen to other flowers.

10. Bees as Pollinators • “There are thousands of kinds of pollinators - bees, flies, wasps, butterflies and moths, birds, bats, and even a few more exotic ones. All pollinators have their value, but they are not interchangeable, and some are more important than others.” •   ”Many flowers are especially adapted to specific pollinators, and others cannot do the job. When Capri figs were imported to California from the Old World, growers could not get a crop until they came to understand that a special wasp is the only pollinator for that variety. After the capri fig wasps were imported and released, the trees began to bear fruit.” The Kids Good bug Page, http://goodbugpage.com/polstory2.htm, 09/08/09

11. How Seeds Travel • 1. Gather five seeds of different sizes and shapes. • 2. Describe your seeds on a chart. • 3. Next to each seed description, predict whether that seed could travel by wind, water, or hitchhiking. • 4. Try out your predictions using the tests below. Record your answers on the chart. • Wind Test: With an adult's help, stand a fan on a chair so that the top half sticks over your desk. Use tape to make a starting line 25 cm (10 in.) away from the fan. Place seeds on the starting line. Turn the fan on at medium speed for 20 seconds. Measure how far your seeds traveled. A seed passes the Wind Test if it blows more than 1 m (40 in.) away from the line. • Water Test: Fill a small container half full of water. Drop the seeds into the water and stir. A seed passes the Water Test if it floats. • Hitchhiker Test: Place a seed on a table and cover it with one test material. Gently press down on the material with your palm. Lift and check -- does the seed stick to the material? Repeat with two other test materials. A seed passes the Hitchhiker Test if it sticks to any test material. Wrap-up: Were you surprised by any of the ways your seeds could travel? Look at the seeds that passed the Wind Test. How are they similar? (Hint: Are they all small? Big? Do they have the same shape?) How are these seeds different? What do the floating seeds have in common? How about the hitchhiking seeds? Scholastic.com, http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/seedtravel.htm, 09/09/09

12. Chart for seed lesson plan.

13. References The Magic School Bus: Inside a Beehive Joanna Cole. Scholastic Press, 1998. An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly Laurence Pringle. Orchard Books, 1997 Plants on the Go: A Book About Seed Dispersal (Finding-Out Books) (Hardcover), Eleanor B. Heady We read about seeds and how they grow (Webster junior science series), Harold E. Tannenbaum, Webster Publishing Company, 1960 Photosynthesis (Science Concepts, Second Series), Alvin Silverstein, 21st Century Books, revised 1997 Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pistil, Dictionary.com LLC, revised 2009, accessed 09/08/09 Scholastic.com, http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/seedtravel.htm, 09/09/09 The Kids Good bug Page, http://goodbugpage.com/polstory2.htm, 09/08/09