This year we are studying Exploring Creation with Botany for our science curriculum. Yes, we are spending the whole year studying plants. It is so much fun to go in-depth on each part of the plant. We spend 2 weeks on a Lesson/Chapter, and we get to do many cool experiments! We are also taking a Farm Class which ties in nicely with our science curriculum!
Lesson 1-What is Botany and Taxonomy?
Our first 2 weeks were spent learning about what we are going to learn this year! What is Botany? What are nonvascular and vascular plants? What are angiosperms and gymnosperms? What are seed homes? What is taxonomy? We covered all these topics! We did a fun "experiment" called shoe taxonomy to learn how to classify things. Then we memorized Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genius, Species!
Lesson 2-Seeds
The next chapter we studied was about seeds. We learned about seed anatomy, needs, and germination. We learned how to classify monocots and dicots. We examined many different seeds and broke them apart to see what is inside.
Of course, we had to grow a few seeds to watch the cotyledons break apart. the girls watched the epicotyl, hypocotyl, and radicle become the stem and root for the plant. The girls charted the days of germination for their individual plants.
We brought ART into our science class today. Time to get creative!
Lauren's masterpiece
Lyndsey's masterpiece
Lesson 3-Flowers
Lesson 3 was on Flowers. We learned about the parts of a flower. Then we dissected a few flowers!
This was a fun experiment! We had a good time breaking down the flowers and finding all the parts and labeling them. Colleen even "dissected" a flower or ten! Colleen also helped us set up a preservation experiment with Borax. The picture in the right bottom corner shows to flower and petals almost a month later. The BORAX helps the flower retain its color.
We also read about Carnivorous plants, Venus Flytraps, Bladderwort plants, Pitcher plants, and Sundew plants at the end of our flower lessons.
Lesson 4 - Pollination
In Lesson 4 we discussed the different ways that flowers pollinate. We talked about wind pollination and how inaccurate it is. We discussed self-pollination, and how God designed most of our foods (grain, peanuts, lettuce, tomatoes, beans, oats) to self-pollinate so that people have food. We discussed animal pollination in-depth! We discovered which plants were designed to attract which animals and why.
Lesson 5-Fruits
Lesson 6-Leaves
In Lesson 5, the girls learned about the seed containers, fruit! We learned that technically everything with seeds is a fruit-even things like pea pods and nuts. Interesting! The girls had a great time quizzing family members on the different "fruits or not fruits". We also read about the different ways that seeds are dispersed by humans, water, wind, animals, and mechanical! Lyndsey's favorite was the squirting cucumber plant which uses mechanical dispersal. Its small cucumbers are filled with slimy juice that contains the seeds. As they ripen, the pressure causes the cucumber to burst off its stalk and explosively shoot slimy liquid up to 20 feet away!
We also learned the different types of fruits and learned to classify each fruit as pepo, berry, hesperidium, pome, drupe, grain, pods, capsules, follicle, achene, samaras, or nuts!
In Lesson 6, the girls learned about leaf arrangement, venation, shapes, and margins. We went on a nature hunt to collect different leaves around our neighborhood, and then we labeled them by arrangement, venation, and margins. The girls were very excited to see these spores on the fern. They quickly remembered our discussions from Lesson 1!
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