How much water does this plant need everyday?
Engage

This plant needs several doses of water every day. In this activity, you will need to figure out how much water this plant needs to stay alive.
Describe how the plant changed after you gave it water.
Explore
Your challenge is water this plant and figure out how much water it needs.
In this activity you can change the amount of water the plant gets each day. You can also keep it the same if your plant is growing well.
Move the slider to fill the watering can with some water. You decide how much.
Then give the plant some water by clicking on the watering can.




Now that you know how this model works. Keep giving it water once a day and try to keep the plant alive for 15 days.

Change the dial before you click the "watering can" button if your plant is not getting the right amount of water.
If you do not give the plant enough water it will get lose some leaves and look like
If you give it too much water it will look like
If you give it enough water it will like this, and will get flowers on the 15 day.
Yeah, you did it! The plant grew, had the right amount of water, and flowered in 15 days. Good Job!

How much water did this plant need? How did the model let you know the plant was getting the wrong amount of water.
Explain






Teacher will then hold a discussion...
"What does a plant look like if it doesn't have enough water? If it has too much water? How much water do the plants need? In the real world do all plants need the same amount of water? What are some examples?

Elaborate
Here is another plant. This plant may look like your first plant but it could be different. From now on the plants you will see in this activity could have different water needs than your last plant.
Your job is to keep this plant alive for 15 days and have it produce flowers.
Compare your plant to the other plants. How do the differ?


Place your plant in the laboratory by clicking on it and dragging it over ot the "Lab icon."



Teacher will need to display the plants from each different watering amount group so that the students can observe and compare. (If there is no smartboard, what suggestions do we have?)



Teacher will need to hold a discussion about variation and about needs of plants.
What are the differences? How come different roots make a difference in how much water a plant needs? If a plant had shallow roots and then there wasn't enough water what would happen?
Do you think all variations make a difference in the health of an organism.?