Strand – Living Things

Strand Unit – Plant and animal life

Class – 5th – 6th

Plants need water

Prior knowlege required by students

Plants are living things and just like us they need water to survive. Plants also use the water to absorb vital nutrients that are important to the plants growth and well being.

Stage 1

Stimulus questions to engage the students and get them interested

Why are plants and grass green?

What keeps them green and what might cause them to change colour?

Why do plants drink water?

How do plants drink water?

Why do some trees lose their leaves in winter while others don’t?

Listen to an audio clip of the children questioning each other.   

Stage 2

The experiment

Materials needed – (glass jars, celery, water, red food colouring)

Divide the class into groups 0f 2 or4  giving each group some leafy celery sticks, a glass jar and some red food colouring.

Tell them that today we are going to investigate how plants drink water?

Ask each group for their predictions and make sure their predictions are recorded clearly. 

Before carrying out the experiment take a look at the video to see how it transpires.

watch video  – celery

Stage 3

Learning outcomes

Ask each group some of the following questions so as to get feedback from their experience.

Why did the leaves and stalk turn red?

What do you think would happen if I turned the celery upside-down(inverted) and placed it in the jar of water?

Why did I use red food colouring?

Would it be possible to see the direction the water travelled without the food colouring?

Listen to an audio clip of the children’s explanations and findings 

Conclusion

Provide the children with a platform to communicate and record their results. Revisit the preditions made earlier and see which groups made an accurate predition. Try out this fun interactive quiz which will help reinforce the science lesson. Discuss how the children worked like scientists where they answered some research questions, planned an experiment and then carried out the experiment.

Interactive Quiz – Science quiz

Follow up activity

Grow your own

1. Soak a small sponge in water.

2. Sprinkle some grass seeds on the sponge.

3. Place the sponge in a sunny place and water it a little each day.

4. Watch carefully as the grass begins to grow.