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interactive ideas

Monique Reed monique at mail.bio.tamu.edu
Wed Sep 20 09:23:22 EST 2000


Some ideas:

Fun fruit dispersal--maple whirlies, cockleburs, sweetgum balls,
Asteraceae achenes with parachutes or awns, needlegrass, rattly seed
pods, milkweed seeds, beggar-ticks, etc.

Sensitive plant (you may need multiple pots to rotate in and out)

Carnivorous plants--sundews and flytraps are the most popular

Guess-the-inside  with unusual fruits like papaya, mango, whole
coconut, chayote, cherimoya, etc.

Paper-making.  If you have a shredded-paper stash soaking, you can
blend, pour, mold, and unmold in less than 5 min.  Let kids look at
paper with a magnifying glass or simple microscope, and hand out made
paper sheets from previous batches (you'll have to make some ahead)

Plant pigments--put on garbage-bag ponchos and play with cactus fruit
pulp, beet stamps, blueberries, etc.

Potato candy.  Peel, boil, and mash a potato.  Add 1 cup powdered
sugar.  It will liquefy.  Keep adding powdered sugar until you have a
paste.  Flavor and color as desired.  Roll, shape, cut with cutters or
whatever.  Let dry and eat!

Cotton--I don't know where you live, but if you can score some cotton
bolls, some raw cotton, some cleaned and de-seeded cotton, and a pile
of cotton seeds to play with, the kids can have a blast seeing where
blue jeans come from.

Monique Reed

Beverly Brown wrote:
> 
> Hi to all!
> 
> Our local science museum asks scientists to come in on Saturdays and do
> something interactive with kids.  The kids are wandering by various
> displays and may stop at our tables for 5-10 minutes max.  I need some
> intriguing, interactive plant ideas for ages from toddler to 3rd or 4th
> grade.






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