Pollination Activity

Pollen needs help to get to the egg cells of a flower. Before it reaches the egg cells, pollen must land on the sticky top of the female part of the flower (the stigma). Wind, insects, birds and small animals help get the pollen there. Each type of flower has it's own type of pollen carrier (or pollinator). If the right pollinator isn't there the pollen, won't reach the female part of the flower - that means there'll be no seeds!

Try this experiment to see what happens if pollen can't get to the flowers...

• Choose a plant that is just starting to flower (you can grow your own flowering plants for this experiment).
• Cover 10 young flowers with paper bags (use string to tie the bags loosely over the flowers). This should stop pollen reaching the flowers.
• Tie string loosely around 10 young flowers that you keep uncovered. You will compare these flowers with the covered ones.
• Leave the bags in place until the petals fall off the uncovered flowers.
• Remove the bags from the covered flowers. Do the covered and uncovered flowers look the same? Draw a picture of each.
• Draw pictures to show what the covered and uncovered flowers look like each week, over the next 3 weeks.
• Have fruit formed from the uncovered flowers? Have fruit formed from the covered flowers? If so are they the same size as the fruit from the uncovered flowers?
• Write a few sentences explaining your results.
• If there was no difference between the two groups of flowers, think of some reasons why not.

For some information on pollination go to http://www.queen.pollinator.com/beeseeds.htm and http://www.pollinator.com/kids/kids_index.htm.