♫ Flowers, flowers, pretty flowers ♪
Did you know that the Indigenous peoples of what is now Canada used more than 1,000 different plants for food, medicine, making things and cultural ceremonies? And that most flowers are hermaphrodites?
Our botanists discover the essential role flowers play in keeping life on Earth in balance.
They explore how flowers reproduce by dissecting a real flower to observe its male and female parts, then follow the story from pollinators to seed dispersal and germination.
Nothing goes to waste in this workshop: students even get a little taste of their flower’s nectar.
Flowers will hold no more secrets for them!
Learning goals (elementary)
- Describe the parts of a plant (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds).
- Match the parts of a plant with their general function.
- Describe how plants reproduce sexually (pistil, stamen, pollen, seed and fruit).
- Describe the growth stages of a flowering plant (pollination, fertilization, fruiting, dispersal, germination and flowering).
- Dissect a flower in class.
Learning goals (secondary)
- Describe the parts of a plant and their functions.
- Tell asexual from sexual reproduction.
- Describe the role of gametes in reproduction.
- Describe ways plants reproduce asexually (for example, budding, cuttings, rhizomes and tubers, layering).
- Describe how flowering plants reproduce sexually.
- Dissect a flower in class.
