Introduction to Seeds
OBJECTIVE
Students will understand where seeds come from and how they grow
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Where do seeds come from? Why is seed saving important? What happens to a garden during the fall How do we know when a plant is ready to be harvested? What are the stages of a plant life cycle?
MATERIALS NEEDED
Under each activity
PROCEDURE
Part 1: Harvesting from garden
Materials: What Do You See in the Garden? worksheet
Lesson: Students work in pairs to observe the school garden. They write down what they are noticing (colors, insects, plants) and make a list of the plants they are harvesting using the “What do you see in the garden?” worksheet. Some crops may be tasted, others are saved for further exploration. Students share their discoveries together at the end of class.
Part 2: Seed exploration
Materials: Tomatoes (one for every two students, of all different types and stages of maturity: small, large, red, green and orange, etc.); other crops to observe (ie, sunflowers, peppers, lettuce leaves, garlic bulbs, and corn); kid-friendly knives; cutting boards.
Lesson: Brainstorm together with students: “Where do seeds come from?” Review the list of crops the students observed in the school garden in the last lesson. “Do all of these plants have seeds? Let’s start by observing the seeds in the tomato.”
Students work in pairs to dissect their tomato.
Discuss as a group why some tomatoes have seeds and why others may not. (They
only produce seeds at the end of their life cycle.) Hand out the other crops to the student pairs. Ask students to try and find out where their plant’s seed is.
Then each pair reports back to the group by sharing the name of their crop and the location of its seeds.
Part 3: Garlic preparation
Materials: A variety of different types of garlic bulbs; bucket
Lesson: We are going to focus on one of these crops: garlic. Where did this garlic come from? How did it grow? What do we know about garlic? Where is its seed? Students look at the different types of garlic and discuss differences between them. There are so many different types of garlic!
Break apart the cloves and put them in the bucket. We will plant these next class!
Part 4: Garlic planting (see lesson plan)
Part 5: Seed saving
Lesson: Why is it important to save seeds? Brainstorm with students.
Students make seed packets using origami methods. Seeds are kept with teacher until the spring, when they will be ready to plant.