CPALMS: Flower Dissection

In order to teach the benchmark related to sexual reproduction in flowers (oh yes, it's great fun to teach a bunch of 10 year olds about SC.4.L.16.1...) we dissect flowers in my classroom. I can't take credit for the entire lesson - that belongs to CPALM: Dissect It! This lesson is a really great one, but I've modified it to meet my own needs - as teachers do.

The first thing I do is start out with an introduction using the PowerPoint from the CPALMS website. Then, we dig into a flower - literally. I buy flowers from Publix and we cut them into shreds (we hate wasting the flowers, but hey...the classroom smells great by the end of the day!).

In previous years, I've explained everything to the students and then given them a variety of flowers depending on what was available from Publix at the time. What ensued was sometimes confusing...some flower parts are very obvious when being dissected, but for students that have never seen a stamen or pistil, things get confusing.

However, this year I managed to find several bouquets of Alstroemeria - which are very easy and predictable to dissect (with a little bit of research by the teacher). I especially liked that there were actual numbers the students could look for - 3 petals with stripes; 3 sepals (same color as the petals, but no stripes); and 6 stamen. Some of my kids found a "seventh" stamen, but then realized they were holding the pistil.

After finding and sorting out all the pieces, students wrote labels in their notebooks and then taped everything down. I encouraged them to go to town with the tape and really seal everything in. (Buy rolls of tape & dispensers at Dollar Tree for your groups...it's actually pretty decent stuff!)

The pictures below are of the same notebook page...

The day I did the science lab.	Two months later...dried out & faded....and pollen grains have turned to powder on the stamen, but they're still sealed up.