Case 3 - Growing Deeper

After talking about seed dispersal methods, have students collect a variety of seeds and offer explanations of how the seed might get moved from place to place based on its structure or perhaps where it is found.

Make a seed collection. Collect seeds from different plants. Include a variety of plants such as common flowers, vegetables, landscape plants, tropical fruits, and ornamental plants. Look at the seed shapes, sizes, colors, and structures. Make a graph that charts the number of seeds found in the different fruits. Some fruits will have none while other will have a large number. Why are there differences?

Research and collect seeds that may have some significance to other cultures.

Research how long seeds live.

Try germinating seeds that may require special treatment to break a physical or physiological dormancy. Grow treated as well as untreated seeds and note differences in the time it takes to germinate.

Organize a trip to a commercial greenhouse to see how they go about germinating large numbers of seeds.

Find out if seeds are affected by freezing. Put a variety of seeds in the freezer for different lengths of time. Plant them and see if freezing had any effect.