Redbud Blooms in Red Haw State Park

• How do plants reproduce?

• Why is blooming necessary for pollination to occur?
• How is pollen transferred from one blossom to another? 
• What types of pollinators would be attracted to the redbud blossoms?

Students could:

• Discuss as full class why trees have blossoms, ask students to recall any similar scenarios in the trees they may live by.
• Work in pairs to draw what they think the individual blossoms of the redbud trees look like with labels. Have the pairs of students form groups of four to share and discuss their plant models.
• Conduct a flower dissection (or virtual) to identify the parts of a flower.
• Read an article in pairs and learn about the parts of the plant and the pollination process.
• Modify the first model they created of the parts of a flower as their learning progresses. 
• Use a list of pollinators and plants with descriptions and match up the flower with its appropriate pollinator.
• Create a finalized model of a plant with its reproductive parts explaining how it is pollinated.

• National Parks Service | Flower Dissection Lab: This is a document you can use when conducting an in-class flower dissection.
• Science Buddies | Flower Dissection STEM Activity: This is a video of a potential flower dissection lab teachers could show to their students or have them complete to investigate how the reproductive parts of a flower compare.
• Chicago Botanic Gardens | Pollinator Match-Up: This is a PDF resource providing a list of pollinators with descriptions, and a list of flowers with descriptions that allows students to match up which pollinators go with which flower.
• CK12 | Flowering Plants: This article explains the parts of a flowering plant and how they work together.

Submitted by Dan Voss and Madison Beeler as part of their Iowa STEM Teacher Externship experience at Iowa PBS.

Media produced for Iowa Outdoors by Iowa PBS.