Plant Growth and Development

Lesson Summary Students will now get the chance to observe the properties of a real bee.  They will discover pollen baskets and hair that the pollen sticks to in the process of gathering nectar and pollen from flowers.  The students will create “bee sticks” to cross-pollinate their brassica plants. Teacher Background Bees produce wax and honey.  They also help transfer pollen from plant to plant, making reproduction possible for flowering plants.  Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred from the male parts of the plant to the female parts.  If pollination occurs, new seeds develop.  Brassica plants need to rely on cross-pollination, where the flowers on a plant must be pollinated with the flowers from a different plant.  (You cannot cross-pollinate the flowers of one plant in one cell with itself.)  The children will discover how a bee’s specialized body makes it a terrific pollinator, and perhaps, a little less frightening for some.  As bees go about the intentional business of gathering pollen and nectar to take back to the hive, pollen sticks to the bees’ hairy bodies.  As a bee moves on to the next flower, she unintentionally leaves some pollen from the previous flower on the new one.  If that pollen reaches the female parts of the flower, pollination occurs, and seeds develop.  Read in the teacher guide to learn about the bee colony, drones, the queen, and worker bees. Set-up/Management Tips Some students will be fearful of bees due to experiences with allergic reactions to bee stings. The bees were harvested after dying naturally, then they have no stingers, therefore, the bees cannot sting or cause allergic reactions. The flex cam is a terrific tool for showing detail in this lesson. Literacy Support Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleishman (“Honeybees” poem) *see Literacy Links Scientific Vocabulary The following words are key vocabulary words that will be introduced in this lesson and reinforced throughout the unit: abdomen drone head (one of 3 body parts) honey bee pollen pollen baskets queen thorax worker Other Resources The Magic School Bus: Inside a Bee Hive by Joanna Cole (Lesson 8 or 9)