Week 6 Day 3 Gravity

We started with Gratitude Circle, a quick game of Bibbity Bibbity Bop and a Cosmic Relay  using what we learned about the hierarchy of celestial bodies from yesterday.  Then we discussed, “How do plants sense gravity to know which way is up in order to grow roots down and stems up?” We talked about statoliths (tiny dense grains of starch that fall inside a plant cell sending signals to let the plant know which way is “down” and which is “up”. Then they made Statolith artwork (using bins to represent the statocyte cells and marbles as the statoliths). Next we took a snack break and went to the obstacle course. Then we explored how gravity affects weather on Earth (holding the atmosphere in place, which creates clouds, wind, lightning, tornadoes, rain, snow. Most weather that we experience and know wouldn’t exist without gravity). Then we explored how trees get water to their top branches (through root pressure, capillary action and transpiration pull). And we set up a transpiration experiment to observe the process of water evaporating from plants leaves. We will be comparing the amount of water collected from a few leaves vs. many and in sunlight vs. shade. Then they played “Transpiration Chain” (in 3 teams the explorers moved water as quickly as they could from the “roots” through the “stem” and out the “leaves” into a cup with a goal line). During lunch, they practiced their original play and then we hiked to the creek to play with clay, explore and cool off.