Summary

Pupils often confuse the complicated issues involving pollination with seed dispersal. These activities will help to clarify the differences.

The activities should not replace the actual study of flowers. The sense of discovery of identifying the anther and stigma first hand, cannot be replaced by IT. These activities will however reinforce the practical work of studying flowers. It would be impossible to show the cycle of germination, growth, flower production and seed dispersal to pupils in one session. These activities should help to explain the plant life cycle and teachers can later draw the pupils' attention to the processes first hand.

Suitable for

Year 5

Using a non-interactive whiteboard

The activities will work as well using either an interactive pen or mouse control. It makes no difference.

Prior learning required

The opportunity to dissect a flowering plant prior to the activities would be beneficial.

Aims and objectives

• to identify and label the parts of a flower
• understanding of pollination and the processes involved
• the difference between pollination and seed dispersal
• understanding of the life cycle of a flowering plant

Timings

Each activity should take approximately 10-15 minutes. However pupils should be allowed time to repeat the activities to reinforce their understanding of the processes involved.

Suggestions for group activities

Getting pupils to participate in the following practical activity will help to reinforce pollination. Get some pupils to be flowers with a glass of water or, better still, lemonade (nectar!). Invite a confident pupil to pretend to be a butterfly. Give the pupil a straw and invite the pupil to visit the flowers and to drink the lemonade (nectar). As the pupil drinks the liquid sprinkle the pupil's hair with talcum powder (pollen). As the child visits the next flower get the pupil to shake his or her head to deposit the pollen. (Check the pupils are not asthma sufferers!)

Suggestions for differentiation

The practical nature of the activities should not preclude SEN pupils.

Further activities

The opportunity to study a flower first hand and to take a flower apart would be invaluable if the pupils were not given the opportunity to do this at the beginning.

The pupils could make a leaflet explaining pollination using drawings and words.

Another really successful task is to get the pupils to invent their own flowers and methods of pollination and seed dispersal. Let the pupils be creators and let their imagination run riot! For example, a mobile phone plant that makes a sound similar to a ringing phone and allows visitors to find their hands dusted with pollen when they answer it. Or a nice-smelling chocolate plant that produces bitter seeds that visitors have to spit out. Original pupils' ideas!

Curriculum links

Scientific enquiry - Investigative skills

3.11 make comparisons and identify and describe trends or patterns in data

Life processes and living things - Life processes

1.1 that there are life processes common to plants

Life processes and living things - Green plants as organisms

3.4 the main stages in the life cycle of a flowering plant
3.5 about the process of pollination
3.6 how pollen and seeds can be transported

QCA scheme of work 5b: "Life cycles"