The Root of Things....

Sometimes the best science lessons are impromptu and have very little 'curriculum'.  Inspired by the seed packets in Lowe's we decided to start a Botany unit. 

This week we studied roots.

We observed carrots...  (notice the lateral roots, aka the hairy things?)

We dissected the carrots and identified the vascular tissue in the core....

We sketched what we observed....

We learned about different root systems and parts...

We dug up three types of weeds to check out what kinds of roots they had (notice the three different types?)

We also observed onion skin and thin shavings of carrots under our microscope...and we could actually see the cells!

Then we wrote a few paragraphs describing what we did.

Lots of hands on,  lots of observations....lots of fun!