Sunday, February 12, 2012
Celery has strings?!
This week my students did not eat a piece of celery, but dissected it!! They were learning about vascular tissue and what job it has in a plant. Before the students "learned" anything from me, I had them explore a piece of celery with a guided inquiry activity. They seemed to pick up on the idea that the strings they saw inside of the celery contained water, because everytime they went to open more of the celery, water came from inside and ended up on the paper towel. By going around and asking them different questions, they figured out that if water was being moved through the tubes, then food or sugar must also be doing the same thing! When we started to explain what they were seeing, finding out that those strings were called vascular tubes and they had names was a cinch for them to understand! They had already seen them and had held them in their hands. It made their learning a million times easier!!
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I really like this lesson plan. My grandma would always have me pick her yellow Easter Lillies and she would place them in a vase of red water. I was always amazed at how the red would "bleed" into the leaves. Your student's work was very impressive. They were very detailed and seemed to have enjoyed this experiment.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great lesson. I think that I may have to try this when we get to the unit on plants. This is a great inquiry lesson. Do you mind sending me the worksheets I would like to do this activity.
ReplyDeleteNot a problem!! I will send them your way!
DeleteThis is a great lesson. What grade level was it for? Also, how did you get the sample work to post on your blog?
ReplyDeleteIt was for 7th grade. Many of them made the comment they had done this activity before with the flowers and I replied, but now you know WHY it happens and which strutures are responsible for it. I had the PDF's saved to my computer and when I was writing there was an option to insert a file to your blog. I just did that. I did not know how to attach a link.
DeleteI love this lesson and your pictures. I am getting so many great ideas from reading everyone's blog. The work I have seen is so good that it makes me want to keep working and updating my blog. Great lesson! I will definitely have to try this lesson at the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it!! My kids seemed to enjoy it as well. The best part, was I could reference back to the celery and the flowers throughout the entire unit, or if a student was struggling with coming up with the word vascular tissue, I just asked them about the celery and they immediately remembered! Great!
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