Seed Dispersal Design Challenge
Adapted from Seed Dispersal: Design Challenge Learning by the Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose CA
Note: This competition can be a collaborative team activity instead of a competition!
Anchor:
Have you ever seen seeds floating or flying on the breeze? Stuck to your clothes? In the mouth of a critter? Tell us more!
Add:
Because plants are stationary, they have adapted marvelous methods for dispersing their seeds to spread their species! Today, you’ll get a chance to design a wind dispersed seed! Seed dispersal adaptations include:
Wind—seeds are designed to carry on the wind—floating or flying!—with distances varying from a few dozen feet to several miles! Local examples include milkweed, maple and dandelion seeds.
Adhesion—“hitchhiker” seeds are designed to stick to animals so they can be transported to other fertile ground! Examples include thistles and calico aster.
Seeds that become food— seeds eaten by animals get “pooped out” elsewhere and germinate, with the poop itself often being a great fertilizer for that germination! Some of these seeds are intended to be eaten—such as acorns taken by forgetful squirrels, that become oak trees!
Fire—Believe it or not, some seeds require fire to germinate. For example, the giant sequoia (the largest living thing on earth by volume), needs fire to crack open its seed pods, and a cleared (burned) out forest floor to most successfully germinate and grow into new, majestic sequoias!
Here’s a cool video explaining and showing different seed dispersal methods:
Activity:
Mission: Design a seed pod model that will carry as far as possible on the wind.
Materials:
One 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper (scrap paper is fine)
6 inches of masking tape
Scissors
One dried lima bean (seed)
Box fan
Measuring tape
Steps:
1. Decide (with youth voice/choice to the greatest extent) how to split up youth into design teams or groups.
2. Decide (again, with youth voice/choice to the greatest extent) whether the activity will be collaborative or competitive—for example, instead of having teams/groups compete against one another, make the goal an aggregate distance for all the seed models designed!
3. Distribute the supplies to the teams/groups.
4. Explain the mission and rules: Each team/group, using only the materials provided, needs to work together to design a conveyance for the lima bean that will carry the bean seed as far as possible on the wind of the box fan. Choose and share the duration of time allowed for the design (15 minutes, etc.).
5. Once the designs are done, turn on the box fan (in a larger open space!) and drop each designed seed pod down into the breeze of the fan. Using the measuring tape, measure and record the distance each designed seed pod carries. Allow each team/group three drops—and record either the aggregate or average scores for the three drops.
6. Calculate team or aggregate team scores depending on whether the group decided on a collaborative or competitive format! If collaborative was chosen, you can add a second round of design tweaks and drops to see if the whole group can increase its aggregate distance!
Activity Mission: Design a seed pod model that will carry as far as possible on the wind.
Away:
Seeds are everywhere, so it’s easy to explore and have fun with them! You can be on the lookout for them through all four seasons. It’s good to learn more about invasive species as well, so you know which seeds we don’t want to disperse!
