Are you teaching your students about the parts of a flower or plant anatomy? Sometimes the best way to understand how something works is by taking it apart. A flower dissection is a simple and engaging hands-on activity that brings plant anatomy to life in your classroom. In this activity, students will carefully examine and identify key flower structures like petals, sepals, carpels, and stamens. Plus, they’ll explore the fascinating connection between flowers and Fibonacci numbers in nature!
If you’re looking for more background information about flower anatomy, be sure to check out my blog post where I cover the four main whorls of a flower. You can also learn more about the functions of flowers and their various parts in the plant life cycle in this post about pollination and the plant life cycle!
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Please Note: I’ve made the directions for this flower dissection activity available for free here in this post. If you would like printable directions and worksheets for this activity, you can find them in my complete Flowers Unit in my shop.
Materials
Each student will need the following materials:
- Flowers
- Tweezers
- Glue
- Pencils or pens
- Printed student directions and lab worksheet (available in my Flower Unit)
Tips for Success
- Have flower and plant anatomy diagrams on hand so your students can reference them as they dissect their flowers.
- You can find my hand-drawn flower & plant anatomy diagrams in my flowers unit (linked above)
- You can also find a free flower diagram on my free resources page (pictured below)!
- Use a large flower so that students can easily see all the parts.
- Use a complete flower with all four main flower parts: sepals, petals, carpels, and stamens. For example, lilies, hibiscuses, or tulips are all good choices.
Directions
Part 1: Flower Dissection
Pass out the materials to your students. Give a brief overview of the main parts of a flower. Then, assist your students as they work through the following steps to dissect their flowers:
- Use the tweezers or your fingers to carefully remove the sepals and then the petals from your flower.
- Break apart the carpel(s) and stamens.
- Count the number of sepals, petals, carpels, and stamens and record the number of each.
- Glue one of each part to the lab worksheet.
- Use a pencil or pen to draw arrows and label the stigma, style, and ovary on the carpel glued to the lab worksheet.
- Use a pencil or pen to draw arrows and label the anther and filament on the stamen glued to the lab worksheet.
Part 2: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature
Fibonacci numbers form a sequence so that each number is the sum of the previous two numbers (e.g., 1+1 = 2; 2+1 = 3, 3+2 = 5; 5+3=8; and so on). Fibonacci numbers are often found in nature. Students should answer the following questions:
- Calculate and write down the next 5 numbers in the Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,… ___, ___, ___, ___, ___
- Look back at your lab worksheet. How many petals did your flower have? Is this a Fibonacci number? What about the sepals? Carpels? Stamens?
Study Flowers with Wild Earth Lab!
If you enjoyed this activity, I know you’ll love my Flowers Unit! It includes everything you need for this activity and other flower projects too!
OR – take your botany learning to the next level with my Botany Collection. It’s a bundle of three plant units: Flowers, Pollination, and Fruit!
Ready for another dissection?
Read my blog post on how to do a Mushroom Dissection Lab!
Mushroom Dissection + Spore Prints: try this fun mycology activity in your classroom!
Studying the parts of a mushroom is a fun biology activity for students at many levels. One of the best, hand-on ways to learn mushroom anatomy is by dissecting one. In this mushroom dissection activity, students will observe the internal and external parts of a mushroom. Students will operate a microscope to observe spores and…
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