Same but different

Josa-Marie Wehrfritz, JIC and Ros Asher, Tuckswood First School

I am linked with Ros Asher at Tuckswood First School in Norwich. The theme this term has been ‘same and different’, and my project was designed to fit in with this and lasted about three weeks. We made use of the TSN seed kit and tried to encourage the children to explore life processes and think about setting up a fair test. The children were aged from 6 - 8.

The children enjoyed sorting and grouping the different seeds using their own ideas: e.g. round/oval; light/dark. They described the seeds in their own words, and we made a table together. The children were then asked ‘If we plant these different seeds all in the same way (i.e. identical conditions), will they all begin to grow (germinate) at the same time?’ After a lot of discussion they designed a fair test. Not all the children agreed with each other and so we had a vote to decide on the final conditions:

• 3 seeds per pot;

• 2 cm deep (I showed them how to mark a pencil and use this to make the holes); and

• 2ml water each day (we used a 2ml syringe)

They also set up some Petri dishes with seeds on damp paper so that they could see the germination process better.

The children filled in tables to record their results. Some children also measured the rate of growth each day, and made some predictions about what they thought might happen. A couple of weeks later, they showed me their plants and their completed tables and we had a discussion about their predictions. By comparing the Petri dishes and pots, the children could see that some seeds are quick to germinate, but slow to grow an emerging shoot, and vice versa. We talked about this in the context of a the ‘fair test’ in the germination investigation.

Teachers at the school later told me that the children had been rushing in each day to measure their seeds, had really enjoyed the work, and were really excited about it.