This student project requires use of a stereo low power microscope and a flower. Start by having students take a look at the diagram below in order to learn the parts of the flower.
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Have each student carefully remove the following parts of the flower as shown above and place them under the stereo microscope. If your microscope has a camera built in, captures images to share with the class.
What do you notice about the following parts?
- Sepals
- Petals (carefully remove the petals from a simple flower leaving the inside stamens exposed).
- Stamen (remove all the stamens, it consists of a filament (long tube) with a rounded anther (tip).
- Filament
- Anther (find the pollen grains on the anther and measure the length of one pollen grain in mm).
- Pistil (remove the pistil, it consists of the style, stigma and ovary.)
- Style
- Stigma
- Ovary (carefully split the ovary in half lengthwise).
Discussion
- How many sepals are present on your flower?
- How many petals are present on your flower?
- How many pistils are present on your flower?
- How many stamens are present on your flower?
- What is the length of the one pollen grain you measured and captured an image of?
- What is inside the base of the ovary?