Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the activity & exploration which you just completed.

• End of Mystery Assessment and Answer Key
• Demonstration: Flower Soaking Up Water
• Reading: "Tomatoes at the South Pole"
• Activity: Dissect a Root
• Activity: Branches in a Leaf
• Activity: Grow Your Name

Flower Demonstration

To do this demonstration, you have to prepare the day before. You'll need a bouquet of white flowers and food coloring. See below for detailed instructions.

When your flowers are ready for the demonstration, pass out them out so that everyone can look at a flower up close.


Discuss: These flowers soaked up water that had been colored blue. Where did the water go in the plant?

Extra Activity: Dissect a Root

Dissecting a radish root gives students a chance for careful observation. For instructions, see this sample lesson on roots from the University of California’s botanical garden. If you have time for an extensive examination of edible roots, you’ll find many ideas in this detailed lesson.

Extra Activity: Branches in a Leaf

If the demonstration of water traveling into a flower intrigues your students, you can give them a chance to examine this more closely.

Cut some pale lettuce leaves from a lettuce head and put the cut end in red or blue-colored water. (Butter lettuce works well.) Like the flower, the lettuce leaves will soak up the colored water, revealing a pattern of veins in the lettuce leaf. Have children draw the pattern of veins in a lettuce leaf. These are usually difficult to see, but the food coloring makes them visible.

You can do other experiments involving dyes in leaf veins.

Extra Activity: Grow Your Name

If your students are interested in growing plants in water (without dirt), try making a very simple hydroponic garden. All you need is a damp kitchen sponge or piece of cotton cloth, sprinkled with lettuce or radish seeds.

Your students can write their names in seeds, and watch them grow, following the very simple instructions from Tim Hunkin.