How Plants Change Inquiry- Being Scientists

As part of our inquiry, we have been learning about how we can behave like scientists to find out more. First, we learned that scientists are thinkers because they ask questions! They also observe carefully to notice what is happening. After doing some learning and getting out into our garden, we dialed up our Curiosity and came up with these questions about plants:

Next, we learned that scientists carry out experiments to find out answers to their questions. We set up an experiment and made some observations. We put some celery in food dye to see how it absorbs water. We also made some predictions as to what might happen next. Most of us thought that the whole celery would change colour. We made some diagrams of Day 1.

We waited a couple of days and then looked at how the celery had absorbed the food dye. Sometimes experiments create discoveries that are unexpected! Only the celery leaves changed colour, and when we looked inside, there were these channels where the celery absorbed the dye.

We discovered that plants have thin channels inside called xylem. They are like plant veins that help them transport water and food to the leaves. Here is a video about our experiment if you want to do it at home: