Activity 2: The Virtual Field
Introduction: Studying plants in a field
Scientists do experiments in labs like the Virtual Greenhouse and
outside in the field. In this activity, you will grow Mystery Plants
in the Virtual Field.
Mystery Plants can only live where the environment is right for them. And, just like in the Virtual Greenhouse, the plants that are healthy will have flowers. In this activity those flowers will go on to produce seeds.
You will start by figuring out where plants grow best in the Virtual Field. You will use new tools to examine the plants more closely. You will also have the chance to speed up time and see how plants grow over many generations -- something you can't do in real life!
Get started by clicking the blue arrow below.
The Virtual Field: Growing seeds in a field
The field below is a little unusual. The top of this field doesn't
get much light and the bottom of the field gets a lot of light. The
rest of the field is somewhere in the middle.
Your challenge: Find out where each type of Mystery Plant grows best in the field. Once you have all three plants growing and making flowers in the field, take a picture using the snapshot button. If you notice anything interesting about the plants, write it it your lab book.
Instructions: Plant the seeds where you think they will grow best. To plant, click one of the plant buttons and then click anywhere in the field. Each time you click you will plant one seed. Click the Play button
to start growing the plants. Experiment until you have figured out
which seeds grow best in which location. Click the Reset button
to clear all your plants and start over. Run the model as many times
as you want. Try to get all three types of plant to grow and make
flowers.
Graph: Notice that there is a graph to keep track of the number of flowering plants of each type.
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The Virtual Field: Differences in Mystery Plants
The three types of Mystery Plants look different. Did you also
notice that they grow in different places on the field? When the
Mystery Plants are planted in the best place for them, they produce
a flower. The flower drops seeds before the winter and new plants
grow during the following season.
Do you have any new clues about whether or not the Mystery Plants are the same or different species? Remember that a group of plants or animals that can have babies together, share similar features, and live in the same environment is a species.
Variations: Animals
When you grew the plants, their babies all looked like the parent
plants. The seeds from the large leaf plants all grew into plants
that looked exactly like the original one. The same thing happened
with the thin leaf plants and the medium leaf plants -- all the baby
plants of a given kind looked exactly alike.
But in the real world that doesn't always happen. For instance, take a look at these puppies:
They're cute, aren't they? But did you notice something else? Even though these puppies had the same mother and father, they look different.
Variations: Plants
Plant babies are not much different from puppies -- the babies don't
always look exactly the same as their parents. These differences are
called
variations
. People use the natural variations in dogs
to make different breeds. People do the same thing with plants.
Over long periods of time, farmers grew plants, looked at the baby plants and kept the ones with the features they liked. You can imagine that one farmer noticed that some of the leaves on his lettuce plants were redder than others. He really liked the red lettuce, so each time one of his lettuce plants was red, he saved the seeds and grew them. This is how red leaf lettuce was bred.
There are many varieties of lettuce. Their leaves have different sizes, shapes, and colors. They are all the same species. Some species of lettuce grow better in different climates. Most like cooler climates, but some lettuce plants can grow well in hot places.
You may be wondering: In nature, when do variations in a plant or animal get so different that they become a new species? Think about this question as you run the next model.
The Virtual Greenhouse
In this model, you're in the Virtual Greenhouse again. Notice that
there are only three flower boxes this time. And you have only one
seed!
Your challenge: Plant your seed where it will grow best. Watch what happens to the plant's babies.
to start growing the plant. If the plant is healthy, it will grow a
flower, then produce seeds, then new baby plants!
then click on a plant to read more about it.
Adaptations: Plants
The Mystery Plants with large, bushy leaves live in places where
there isn't much light. They need big leaves to gather as much of
the light as they can. We say the bushy plants are
adapted
to
low light. Many of the plants in the rainforest have large leaves
because they live in the shade of the tall trees. The plants with
thin leaves are adapted to an environment where there is a lot of
sunlight. They can survive with thin leaves because there is so much
light. The medium plants have medium leaves and are adapted to mixed
light conditions.
Look around your school and your home for different types of plant leaves. What do you notice? Leaves are adapted to their environments. Plant leaves can have many different kinds of adaptations. Cactus plants live in the dry desert. They have thick leaves that store water. They also have spines, which are an adaptation to keep animals away. Venus Fly Traps, which live in swamps where there are lots of bugs, have leaves that close when a bug lands on them. Venus Fly Traps eat bugs!
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Cactus | Venus Fly Trap |
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Adaptations: Animals
Charles Darwin observed many birds, called finches, on the Galapagos Islands. On each of the ten different islands, the shape of the finches' beaks were shaped differently and the foods they ate were different, too. He studied the birds closely and found that the large beak birds were able to crush bigger seeds and nuts. Other birds had pointy beaks, adapted for eating cactus plants, or smaller beaks, adapted for pulling berries off branches. Each species of bird had a beak that was adapted to eat the food available in its environment.
Mr. Darwin guessed that one species of bird flew over to the islands thousands of years ago. Depending on which island they landed on, different food was available. The birds developed a taste for different foods. Over a long, long time, the birds evolved into different species.
Finches
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Variation: Some babies can survive in different environments
This is the same field as before, but this time you only have seeds
for the medium leaf plant.
Your challenge: You need to grow plants with bushy leaves and plants with thin leaves. See if you can grow plants all over the field, then take a snapshot when you're done to prove you did it.
Instructions: Plant seeds by clicking on the plant button and then clicking inside the field. Click the Play button
to start growing the plants. Healthy plants will grow a flower, then
produce seeds, then new baby plants!
Note: The medium leaf plant is number 5 on the bar graph, but remember, it can have seeds that are different. Plant a few number 5 plants where you think they'll grow best. Then let a few winters go by and see what happens.
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Conclusion
Because of variation in the plant babies, some plant babies were
able to survive under a different amount of sunlight than the parent
plant. It took a while for lots of different plants to grow. Over
time, these variations can lead to a different species of plant!
When the environment changes, variations in one species can help the
plant to adapt to a different environment.
You have completed Activity 2! Close this window to save your work.