Learn about the structure of flowers with this simple hands-on dissection activity and other exciting plant experiments.
Materials
Any flowers with large parts work really well, for example:
Lily
Iris
Daffodil
Tulip
Paper plates or sheets of cardboard
Magnifying glass – optional
Tweezers
Scissors
Method
Lay your flower out over a paper plate, tray or sheet of cardboard. Can you identify the different parts?
Label areas of the different parts of a flower on your piece of cardboard or paper plate and place the dissected pieces with the correct label.
Can you find the following:
Root – carries water and nutrients from the soil to the plant and keeps it anchored in the ground.
Petal – often brightly coloured to attract insects
Leaf – uses energy from sunlight to photosynthesise creating oxygen and sugars for the plant to use for energy
Pollen – pollen is a fine powdery substance which contains the male reproductive cells. It is produced by the anthers of seed bearing plants.
Stem – a plant stem transports water and nutrients from the soil to the rest of the plant. The stem supports the leaves and flowers allowing them to be raised above the ground to be in the light.
Challenge
Can you find a stigma and anther and an ovule and ovary?
What is pollination?
Pollination is when pollen from the anthers on another plant of the same type lands on the female parts of a plant. The female part of the plant , called the stigma, is sticky.
Pollen can be carried on the wind or by insects, once it has landed on the stigma of a plant it travels down a tube where it fertilises the ovules, which then become seeds.
What is Fertilisation?
Fertilisation is when the males cells from the pollen connect with female cells from the ovules.
What is germination?
Germination is when a seed starts to sprout and grow, you could try to grow a bean in a jar to discover the conditions needed for a seed to germinate.
Twinkl have a great free downloadable flower diagram perfect for reinforcing new knowledge.
More Plant Science Experiment Ideas
Find out why leaves change colour in Autumn
Learn about transpiration and with this pretty experiment.
Try growing new plants from tissue cuttings.
Can you make dandelion parachutes and learn how some seeds are dispersed.
Try growing a multi coloured cress caterpillar, can you guess how we made the leaves different colours?
Can you think of any more plant experiments for us?
Suitable for Key Stage 1 Science
Plants
Identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees.
Observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants
Find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy
Key Stage 2 Science
Identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants
Oh I just love these ideas Emma
Oooh.. this reminds me of a science experiment we used to do when we were kids. We did exactly the same thing except we used Hibiscus because they were plentiful at home (but exactly the same idea, it’s much easier to identify the parts).