Mariana Becomes a Butterfly

By Danielle Carse and Kristy Costa

Mariana's Story

• Mariana's friend brought her a plant back from Hawaii

• At first, the plant had berries

• Eventually, they all fell off and it wouldn't grow berries

• Mariana went into the garden to observe pollination between insects and plants

• She noticed no insects were visiting her plant

• The insects needed to pollinate the plant were not in the garden

• Mariana created a pollinator to pollinate her plant so it would grow berries.

• After several materials and supplies, it worked.

Materials Used

Create Two Flowers

Flower A:

• Cut out a flower shape from dark construction paper

• Cover the center with a thin coat of baking soda for a flat flower, such as a poppy.

Flower B:

• Fill the bottom of a test tube with baking soda to represent a tube-shaped flower such as a Dutchman's pipe.

Two Flower Types:

Flower A (pink flower)

OR

Flower B (test tube)

Popsicle Stick

• Does not pick up any baking soda

• Does not drop any baking soda

Pipe Cleaner

• Picked up some baking soda

• Very little baking soda fell when tapped

Pom-Pom Ball

• Has a larger surface area

• Picked up more than the pipe cleaner

• Dropped a lot, but still held on to some

String

• Picked up a very little amount of baking soda

• Cannot be seen because both are white

• Dropped a little.

Tape• Picked up only a thin layer of baking soda.

• Because of the sticky surface it didn't release any baking soda either.

Aluminum Foil

• Picked up a tiny bit of baking soda, covering only a thin layer.

• Like the tape, it did not drop any baking soda.

Our Pollinator Creation:

• Glued a pom-pom onto the end of a pipe cleaner

• We expected it to be the best possible pollinator for both types of flowers

• There is a lot of surface area and depth to reach down in the longer test tube

Critique

• We feel that the original activity is not very student friendly.

• There is not much critical thinking involved in the original activity.

• The activity does not seem very interesting for younger kids so we wanted to add in a little more interactive aspects.

Alternate Activity • Children go on a nature walk to observe the

flowers

• They get to see how they are actually pollinated before taking part in a similar activity.

Which Flower is Best?

• After the nature walk, children can use whichever of the original two flower types that they think they know more about.

• If a child saw more flat flowers then he or she could choose to use a flat flower to experiment with.

• Next, the groups will decide which materials they will try for their hand pollinator.

• There will be 12 materials laid out and they are to choose which 4 they want to experiment with.

Choices:Pipe Cleaner

Pom-Pom Balls

Popsicle Stick

String

Tape

Aluminum Foil

Thin Paint BrushPaperDuct TapeWax PaperPencil Straw

Predict:

• Make a prediction of the best pollinating material.

• Explain why that material is the best.

• This allows for critical thinking.