Go to your CELL!

Today we looked at plants to see if we could find cells. There are three certain parts that every cell must have. One is the cell membrane. It protects the inside of the cell like skin. Another part is the nucleus. The nucleus is the brain of the cell. Cytoplasm is the third part. It's the liquid filling. For plants, the cells must also have a cell wall. Cell walls protect the plant from outside things. It's stronger than the cell membrane, it's thicker, too.
We made slides and looked for the different parts of a plant cell. We found them! When we first looked, we saw lots of cells piled together. Then when we looked closer we could make out the cell membranes and some of us could see the nucleus in a few. There were lots of cells.
It was really awesome and a little disgusting, too.
This cell picture came from: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/plants/cell/

Up close and personal!

Today we made slides of plants and looked at them through the microscopes. They were purple and green and they were very cool to look at. We took samples from plants in our room. We chose Mother-In-Law Tongue, Coleus, and Chrysanthemum. We also looked at prepared slides of algae, onion, and pine tree. They all had veins. We also noticed a pattern. Many of them had stripes, or circles or geometric shapes. We were surprised to see that. Some of us thought we'd just see one large piece. Instead we were impressed to see lots of little circles and squares joined together. They are cells. There were dots inside a lot of the circles and squares, too. One more thing we did was look through a strong magnifier at a pea pod. It looked hairy. It was very 3-D-ish. Very awesome.
Our space seeds and earth seeds experiment is going well. We have sprouts. Some of the sprout stems are spreading out in a V toward the leaves and some are just straight. The ones that are more grown have more circular leaves. The ones that have just gotten started have more pointy leaves. The dirt in the space container seems to be grayer - weird.

Seeds from Space

We're very excited about a new experiment we're doing. Mrs. M. contacted NASA and they sent her some seeds that have been in space! So we are learning the scientific method while we see if going to space makes a difference for Cinnamon Basil seeds.
In 2007 about 10 million seeds were taken up in the space shuttle Endeavor. When they came back, NASA packaged them up and said classrooms could have them for experiments. We got 2 packets. When they sent the space seeds they also sent some earth seeds. They are the same kind of seeds, Cinnamon Basil, but they stayed on the Earth. We figured out that we got earth seeds so we could compare them to the space seeds to see if there is any difference. Mrs. M. told us that this is called a "control" since we know they should grow like they normally do.

So the first step of the scientific method is stating the question. Our question is "Does being in space change how cinnamon basil seeds grow?" The second step in the scientific method is forming a hypothesis. We learned that hypothesis means a very smart guess. We like this because it's supposed to be a guess and if we get it wrong, it's not a big deal because it was a guess to begin with. The purpose is to make us think and have an idea about what experiment to do to find out the answer to our question. We all made our own hypotheses. Some of us think there won't be any difference. Some of us do, like maybe the plants from the space seeds will grow taller or shorter or have different sized leaves.

The third step in the scientific method is perform the experiment. We wrote out what we planned to do. We planted the earth seeds in one planter and the space seeds in another planter and placed them both by the window for sunlight. We plan to take moisture readings every day we're in school and water if the soil measures a 1 or 2. On Fridays we will record our observations in our plant journals. We'll do this until Spring Break, so about 2 months.

When we planted the seeds we noticed right away that the seeds that had been in space were all dark while the ones that had stayed on earth had some dark and some light. Also the space seeds seemed to feel thicker than the ones that stayed on earth. We planted both in there own planters and made little signs for each so we'd not forget which was which. We can hardly wait to see what happens!

Finally!

With our snow day, our cold day, a testing day, and vacation, it's been 6 weeks! Fortunately Mrs. M. was able to give our little jar plants a drink every once in awhile. Today we were able to check on them again. Many of us still have plants, but some are looking a little pale. Some of us actually had lots and lots of new little plants because he planted a whole bunch of new seeds the last time we met. Anyway, we did our measurements and observations and recorded them in our journals. It was fun to flip through all the pages and see the changes. We are taking our plants home today though. Hopefully they'll survive a little cold on the way. Today is a little warmer so they should be okay. We should put them in a warm space near a window when we get home to help them perk back up. Next week we are going to plant some "space seeds"! Mrs. M. got them from Nasa. They were taken up into space on a space shuttle mission. We're going to do an experiment with them and see if they do anything differently than seeds that haven't been in space. Cool, huh?

Plant Detectives

Because the weather has been so cold . . . brrrrrr . . . we've been doing some learning on the computers about plants. We used a really cool site: http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/gpe/index.html
to learn about the different parts of plants and what they need to grow. After we finished researching a "case file" we solved some plant mysteries. It was fun. We worked in partners, too, which made it a little easier.
We also did some more plant observations. The seeds that we planted at the beginning of the year keep showing us new stuff. Sometimes they grow really well. Sometimes they shrivel and die. Sometimes nothing happens. Today, 3 more of us reseeded our plant jars. We put in LOTS of seeds to make sure SOMETHING grew. Next week we will take our plants home. Since we'll be gone for 2 weeks, it would be a good idea to have them in a warm home instead of a chilly school. Hopefully it won't be too cold on the way home. These flower sprouts don't like chilly weather.

SHOOTS!

Were we surprised when we saw how many different plants were shooting up in our flower jars! Those of us who re-seeded have lots and lots of little sprouts. We think they will need some more room soon. So we'll be transplanting them into larger containers. We continue to journal our observations. Some of us are measuring how long the leaves are growing. We all measure how much water our soil is holding. Someone also noticed today that all the plants seem to be leaning in one direction. We realized this was because we had left our jars sitting next to the window for 2 weeks. All the plants were growing toward the light! Fascinating!
For the rest of our time today, we worked in cross grade partners to study plants on the internet. Once we have reviewed our first case, we will attempt to solve a mystery.

The Cut and Mulch Salon

Okay, it was pretty darn cold today, but the sun was out so Mrs. M. said we had to get out and do some winterizing. The first thing we did was cut back the tall grasses outside the 3rd grade windows. We would grab a handful with two hands and Mrs. M would use loppers to cut the stalks off close to the ground. Then we had to fold the long grass a couple of time to put it in a large bag. We filled up 4 bags with the grasses. There is still one more grass plant that needs to be trimmed, but we had to get to the front reading garden before our class time was over.


In the front reading garden we cut back all the mums and mulched them. If we cover up the stems, they should stay nice and toasty during the winter and be ready to bloom again next fall. We all took turns using the smaller clippers to cut the mums back. We had shoveled a trashcan full of mulch and used it all up to cover the trimmed mums.
We had a few minutes to go check on our jar flowers. We were so excited. Many of us who replanted last week have up to 6 plant stems! It's wonderful to see something growing after such a long time of nothing. One of us realized we had drowned the seeds, because when we tipped the glass jar, water seeped out of the dirt. She'll probably have to replant next time, with a few others who still don't have anything growing.