Question

Get together with 3-4 of your friends – From the list of things given, decide who will bring which thing.

A transparent glass tumbler or bottle with a wide mouth, rubber band or thread, some seeds of moong, wheat, bajra, mustard, channa (chickpeas) or rajma (red beans) and a wad of cotton wool.

Each group will work with only one kind of seed. Soak a few seeds (5-6) overnight in a bowl full of water. Take the wad of cotton wool and wet it. Put it on the mouth of the tumbler. Tie it tight to the mouth with a rubber band or thread. Remove soaked seeds from the water and place them on the cotton wool. You will have to take care that the cotton wool does not dry. Observe the changes that take place for the next 10 to 12 days. Did you observe the seedlings come out of the seeds? Draw the picture of the seedling as it looks on the fourth and the eighth day.

Write in your notebook

• What difference did you observe in the seeds after soaking? Compare with dry seeds and write.
• What do you think would happen if the cotton wool had been left dry?
• In which direction did the roots grow? And the stem?
• How big did the plant grow in the cotton wool?
• Did small plants come out from all the seeds?
• What is the colour of the roots?
• Did you see any hair on the roots?
• Try and pull out one little plant from the cotton wool. Were you able to pull it out? Why?
• Did you see how the roots grip the cotton wool? Do you think that the roots hold the soil in the same way?
• Also, look at the plants grown by your friends.

Answer 1

Yes, I observed that seedlings come out of the seeds.

  Day 4

  Day 8

• Seeds get swollen after soaking water and sprout after two days while dry seeds did not swollen and sprout.

• The seeds kept in the cotton wool do not sprout.

• The roots grew downward and the stem grows in an upwards direction.
• Up to 4 cm.
• Yes
• It is off white.
• After 8 days small hairs grew on the roots.
• Yes, I was able to pull out but with difficulties, because roots made grip with the cotton.
• Yes, roots grip the cotton wool.
• Yes, I think roots hold the soil in the same way.
• Roots of the plants grown by my friends also made grip with cotton wools.