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Gone with the wind!

Science Year 3/4
This unit is part of Year 3/4 Science Feast of Flowers, Fruits & Seeds

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Objectives

Can you solve the mystery of why nature packages its seeds in so many different ways? Use your classification skills to sort fruits into different types and learn the many different ways that seeds can be dispersed. Set up a fair test to discover the perfect ‘paper’ seed for wind dispersal.

Science Objectives
i) Explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants.

Working Scientifically

  1. Ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them.
  2. Set up simple practical enquiries and comparative and fair tests.
  3. Use results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions.

You Will Need

Provided Resources

  • A set of colour fruit sorting cards cut up into individual cards
  • Paper-copter templates (2 per sheet) trimmed - enough for several per child

Additional Resources

  • Fruits for sorting
  • Paper plates to hold cut sections
  • Sticky notes and scissors
  • Various paper-copter templates - use the enlarge and reduce function on the photocopier to provide a range templates sizes
  • Cardboard templates - standard size with pen holes at the 3 large black dot points
  • Selection of 5 different types of paper/card and paperclips
  • Task sheets copied ready for the 4 different challenges

Lesson Planning

Teaching

  • Classify fruits according to their similarities and ask questions about the variety of fruits.
  • Investigate wind dispersal by setting up a fair test to compare the flight of different paper spinners.

Activities

  1. Classify fruits into groups according to similarities of structure and type (Yrs3&4).
  2. Investigate wind dispersal by setting up fair tests to determine the effect of varying size/weight (Yr3) or material/shape (Yr4) on the flight of a paper spinner.
  3. Record and report on results and then use them to generate further questions (Yrs3&4).

Investigation - exploring, fair testing, problem solving
Why are there so many types of fruit/seed? For different types of dispersal. Make some easy granola bars. Investigate types of dispersal e.g. animals, water and wind dispersal.
Year 3 - Conduct a simple investigation to answer a question on dispersal.
Year 4 - Explore a variety of factors that may affect wind dispersal.

Vocabulary
Fruit, seed, parent plant, dispersal, germination, investigate, fair test, record, results

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