Germinating Seeds

Name:

Your Task
You are training to be a botanist. You will learn about the parts of a seed and will investigate how seeds grow. You will keep an illustrated diary of the development of your seeds.

Resources
You need some broad beans (out of the pod), one tall straight-sided glass jar, potting mix, black paper and blotting paper.

Look at books or online information such as:
http://www.raw-connections.com/garden/planting/sprout.htm
http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/seeds.htm

The Process
First of all you will see what is inside a seed. Soak a broad bean (chosen because it is a large seed so the inside parts are easy to see) overnight. Handle it very gently, and remove the seed coat then carefully open out the two sections of seed. These are food for the new plant as it starts to grow. Right inside you should see where the new plant grows from. Make a labelled drawing of what you see: seed coat, plant food, new plant.

Now you will sprout (germinate) a broad bean and observe the stages it goes through. Make a roll of blotting paper and stand it inside the jar. Carefully fill the inside of the blotting paper cylinder with potting mix. Slide a ruler very gently between the glass and the blotting paper and slide a broad bean about one third of the way down the jar (it should not be close to the bottom of the jar because you need to see the roots when they develop). Repeat this on the other side of the jar with a second bean, but you could position the bean so that it is upside down or on its side to see if you confuse the bean. Pour a little water into the soil, and let the blotting paper get moist. Do not over water-just keep the blotting paper damp. Wrap the jar with black paper, secure with elastic band and place the jar in a cupboard. This is so that it is similar to being underground. At regular intervals, observe your broad beans and add a little water as necessary. When the shoot is big and has some leaves, plant it in a pot or in the garden.

Presentation Choices
Your presentation will hopefully include a healthy plant! If your plant dies, try to work out why it did, and include that as part of your presentation. Your diary should also be part of the presentation. You could graph the growth: lines below the base line for root growth and above the base line for the shoot. Date each line. You could include photographs or drawings of your seeds' stages in your plant diary.

Evaluation
How do you think you went in this project? Were there things that could be better? Was your presentation informative and attractive? Write a few sentences to rate your performance in this project, sign it and give it to your teacher.