Looking At "Boxes of Dirt"

Late in September, students were asked to go out and walk around in their neighborhoods -- in their socks. The hope was that they would "capture" various seeds on their socks. They then "planted" their socks and waited to see what would sprout. By the time the projects came to school on October 5, there were only a few sprouts showing. We stashed the "boxes of dirt" all around the classroom and watered and watched and waited. By the early part of this week, we had many more seedlings up and growing and we took time to observe the developments. Plotting where the various seeds were gathered on a map of the city gave us a picture of the dispersion of our seeds, and knowing which ones grew and which didn't gave students a much clearer picture at the way plants are adapted to their environments in terms of their seed dispersal mechanisms.