Summary
To study the life cycle and structure of plants, students grow plants from seed, fertilize them, and collect seed, starting the process over again. With the right growing conditions, almost any plant can be grown successfully in the classroom – native plants for a restoration project, vegetables, cut flowers, etc. The instructions provided here are for growing Wisconsin Fast Plants since they are the most widely used species in classrooms across America. These plants have been artificially selected to grow well in small spaces, with indoor lighting, with little soil, and with an exceedingly short life cycle (14-20 days to flower and 21-40 days to set seed). Therefore, they are incredibly well adapted to survive in classroom conditions as well as participate in multi-generational studies such as plant life cycle studies, Mendelian crosses and artificial trait selection. However, the light boxes and terraqua columns lend themselves to growing virtually any
Objectives
Can observe and document the stages of a flowering plant’s life cycle from seed to flower to seed.
Vocabulary
Brassia rapa (Wisconsin Fast Plants)
Seed
Embryo
Seed coat
Germinate
Radicle (embryonic root)
Hypocotyl (early stem)
Cotyledons (early leaves)
Leaf
Stem
Root
Flower
Fruit/seed pod
