A plant is made up of many different parts.

The four main parts are the roots, the stem, the leaves and the flowers.

Each part has a set of jobs to do to keep the plant healthy.

ROOTS

The roots absorb water and minerals from the soil and anchor the plant in the ground.

STEM

The stem supports the plant above ground, and carries the water and minerals to the leaves.  There are two types of stems, herbaceous and woody.Herbaceous stems are thin, soft and green in colour.

Woody stems are taller, thicker and harder than herbaceous stems. When they are fully grown, they have bark.  Woody stems may be trees or shrubs. A tree will usually have a thick main stem called a trunk.

Let’s do another experiment:

Our inquiry question is:  How Does a Stem Get Water to the Leaves?

Our experiment:

Materials:

• 2 clear jars
• Food colouring (blue and red)
• Celery stalks with leaves

Directions:

• Place 10-15 drops of food colouring into each jar filled with half a cup of water (one jar with red and one with blue
• Cut an inch off the bottom of the celery stalks
• Place the celery into the coloured water
• Wait to see what happens.

Note:  I started the experiment in the afternoon and photographed the results 24 hours later.

What did you observe? 

Complete the experiment page in the protected post.