In the midst of our study of birds, we are also starting to look at the life cycles of two different living things – meal worms and plants. For the meal worms, we have started by just making our initial observations into what they look like. We found that even though they are called worms, they have legs! In fact, they have six legs. That led some of use to think they might be a type of insect. We also made predictions as to what we think will happen with the meal worms as they get older. Some of us think they will simply get bigger. Some of us think they will be turning into something like a butterfly. We will be observing them over the next few weeks to see what will happen!
To look at the life cycle of plants, we are growing brassica. Brassica is also known as the Wisconsin fast-plant…and for good reason. We planted them on a Tuesday, and they were already sprouting on Friday! When we looked at the plants today, we found they have really grown taller and are doing a very good job. We could see roots…and some of us could already see buds for what we think might be flowers. Who knows what we will see next week!
Both of these projects lead to a lot of discussion about making observations, describing what we are seeing, and drawing something as realistically (scientifically) as we can. This is something we will be continuing to work on over the next few weeks.