Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening
PLANTING BASICS Plants need soil water sun and air in order to live and grow Minerals in the soil dissolve in water and the plant roots suck them in this is the plant s food The water travels up the plant stem and out to the leaves In the leaves the plant mixes this food with carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is in the air The plant leaves use the minerals and water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air to grow A special substance called chlorophyll klor oh fill is in the leaves Chlorophyll and sunlight together make it all happen It's truly amazing what plants can do The best part is that while the plant does all this mixing and growing it gives off oxygen from its green leaves Oxygen is what people and animals breathe and it's very important for them to survive You can see why we depend on plants Plants grow from seeds even towering trees started from seeds Each seed contains the beginning
of a new plant and enough food to start its life As the plant inside the seed grows it pushes its way out of the seed It needs air and water in order to do this As soon as the tiny plant gets roots it needs more food than was stored inside the seed Now it is ready to take food from the soil It does this through tiny hairs that grow on the roots The food in the soil dis solves in water and passes into the root hairs From there it moves from the roots up into the stem and out to all the parts of the
How Plants Drink Want to see how a plant sucks up water This activity will show you MATERIALS Celery or a white flower Glass of water Food coloring Put several drops of red or blue food coloring in a glass of water Put a piece of celery in the colored water Within hours you can see the color begin to travel up the celery stem The plant is pulling the water up to get it to the leaves Try putting a white flower such as a carnation in colored water Within a day the color will have tinted the blossom Water for fields of broccoli in California travels in pipes from mountain lakes up to 1 300 miles
o a Tint the water dark red and the celery will turn red too You can see how plants move water up to the
