How do Animals Help Seeds Travel?

Guest post by Jennifer from Education.com

In this fun educational project, children discover firsthand how animals can help distribute seeds in order to spread them across the land.

Many plants grow from seeds – their seeds are like baby plants. Seeds move around; that’s how plants start growing in new places. How do seeds move? Do mama trees push their seeds in dirt strollers? Of course not! One way seeds travel is by catching rides on animals: a seed in one place gets stuck to an animal’s fur, the animal moves, and then the seed falls off in another place. The animals help DISTRIBUTE the seeds.

Experiment Questions:

• Did you catch any seeds by acting like animals in your yard (or playground or park or nature area)?
• Did some fur catch more seeds than others?
• Did different kinds of fur catch different kinds of seeds?
• Did some seeds stick to fur better than other seeds?
• What about the seeds helped them to stick?

What You Need:

• Socks
• Scraps of fake fur in different textures
• Glue
• An outdoor area with lots of plants

What You Do:

1. Glue the scraps of fur onto the old socks.
2. After the glue dries, pull the socks on over your shoes.
3. Go play outside in your yard or playground or park or nature area.
4. If there are more kinds of socks than kids, change socks now and then to give all the socks a try.
5. At the end of your play, remove the socks and examine them carefully. Think about the research questions above.
6. Talk about the plants and animals you have in your outdoor areas and how you think they help one another.

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Jess Note:

I  think my three year old would love to play pretend and be an animal carrying seeds around. I can't wait to try out the experiment though right now, everything around us is pretty brown and barren. I can see this being more effective during dandelion and prickly grasses(/high allergy) season. I'll circle back with how the lesson went at our house.