Exploring What Plants Need to Grow

Last week we carried out a science experiment with cress seeds to help us discover what plants need to grow healthy and strong. The children were excited to become scientists and carefully set up three different dishes to test our ideas.
    •    In the first dish, we placed seeds in sunlight but did not water them.
    •    In the second dish, we watered the seeds but kept them in a cupboard with no sunlight.
    •    In the third dish, we gave the seeds both water and sunlight.

Throughout the week, we observed the changes carefully, took photographs, and discussed what we noticed.

The seeds that had water and sunlight grew well and were a healthy green colour. The seeds that were watered but kept in the cupboard did grow, but they were a pale yellow-green colour. We talked about how they did not look as strong as the ones in the sunlight. The seeds that had sunlight but no water did not grow at all.

The following week, we used the cress that had grown to make cress sandwiches. We tasted the cress from both the cupboard and the sunlight dishes. The pale cress grown without sunlight tasted quite bitter, while the bright green cress grown in sunlight had a fresh, pleasant taste. We decided to use the healthy green cress to make our sandwiches, they were delicious!

This experiment helped us understand that plants need both water and sunlight to grow healthy and strong. The children showed great curiosity, observation skills, and enthusiasm throughout the investigation.