Tulip Garden Update: May 2, 2003
Today's Report Includes:
- Across the Continent Tulips are Declaring Spring
- Year-end Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!
- Gardeners Share
- Brrrr...“Tulips” North of the Arctic Circle
- Planning Next Year’s Experiments:Video Clip
- Concrete Data for Next Year: Growing Degree Days
- Surprise Garden: Don’t Tred Our Tulips
- In Tune with Time: Challenge Question #18
- Tulips and Cryogenics: A Cool Experiment: Try This!
- Challenge Question #19
Across the Continent Tulips are Declaring Spring
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Tulips emerged in 13 gardens and bloomed in a whopping 28 gardens since April 25. Take a look at today's map and reports:
Year-end Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!
Please take a few minutes to share your suggestions and comments in our Year-End Evaluation Form below. The information you provide at the end of each year is the single most important tool used to guide our planning.
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Gardeners Share
York Middle School,York, NE 04/19/03
They're blooming!!! Finally our tulips have bloomed and we have the Growing Degree Day information figured to share. Our tulips emerged on March 19th after having accumulated 132 GDDs worth of heat. We went from 35.5 to 132 during that week which was the first really warm week all spring. Our tulips bloomed on April 19th with 427 GDDs. The week they bloomed we went from 296 to 427 GDDs with our first really hot week of the spring. It was in the 80's for 4 days that week. Our blooms lasted until Thursday last week when it rained and the wind blew and the petals were knocked off.
Highland
Elementary School, Highland, WI 4/28/03
What a beautiful sight to see all of our tulips in bloom after we came
back from our weekend! My second graders were so awed by it, they all
said, "WOW, this is so cool!" They can't wait to plant next
year as third graders.
Kidron Elementary School, Kidron, OH 04/16/03
The students were very excited to see all of the tulips blooming in our
school's land lab ("Nature's Nest"). They all bloomed on the
same day! It is a perfect flower to use to review the parts of a flower.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in such an exciting and dynamic
study.
Brookside Elementary School, Rochester,
NY 04/25/03
We couldn't believe that our tulips had actually begun blooming. Another
class went out in the morning, reporting to us that the pistils and stamens
were not yet visible. Our class went out at about 1:30 in the afternoon,
and two blossoms were completely open. By early Friday afternoon, approximately
20+ were open. Since we just recently had a major ice storm (within a
week and a half), then a minor snowstorm the day before, we thought that
spring would never actually come!
Hidden Hollow, Kingwood, TX 04/24/03
Our tulips have all died. We did not get any blooms. It was cold and wet
this winter, so we do not know why this happened.
Glace Bay High School, Glace Bay, NS 04/28/03
Finally, we have some tulips emerging. Our partner elementary school e-mailed
us this evening to tell us that there were some small sprouts. By the
looks of things, we are one of the last groups to report! My students
found it unusual that we were even later than Alaska!!
Brrrr..."Tulips" North of the Arctic Circle
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| Saara-Maria
Rantanen (left) and Outi Paltto (right) Students at Utsjoen saamelaislukio |
To practice the English language, the Finnish students involved in the International Tulip study have written an essay about springtime and the tulips at their school site. They wanted to share it with us!
Tulips
Our schools tulips haven’t grown at all yet. Today it is snowing and the weather is very cold. At Easter the weather was much warmer and sun was shining almost all the time. It felt like summer. But we think that it will take a long time until that the tulips begin to grow. If they begin to grow too early, it might be that that tulips would die, because of the cold weather.
Spring has come very early this year. There isn’t lots of snow anymore and the birds have already moved back and started to sing. People look very happy because the sun is shining. By Outi Paltto ja (and) Saara-Maria Rantanen
Planning Next Year’s Experiments: Video Clip
Excited about your success with the tulip experiment? Have you collected a lot of information about this year's season? Monitoring tulip growth this spring has probably helped you to become more aware of seasonal cycles. At Belle Sherman Elementary in Ithaca, NY students have set up their own research questions, “We haven't determined how many Growing Degree Days it took till blooming yet. Is it the same year to year? It will be interesting to see if this year's tulips and last year's emerge and bloom at the same time next year.”
Take a moment with your class and
brainstorm a list of “what if’s” for planning next year’s
experiments. What things are you curious about? What would you look for
and what kinds of data would you collect next year?
Meanwhile take a moment and share in the excitement of tulip bloom and
experimentation in this short video clip.
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Concrete Data for Next Year: Growing Degree Days
Collecting the temperature data and calculating Growing Degree Days (GDD) is one way to investigate the phenomena of plant growth. At York Middle School in York, NE students found, “Our tulips emerged on March 19th after having accumulated 132 GDDs worth of heat... Our tulips bloomed on April 19th with 427 GDDs. The week they bloomed we went from 296 to 427 GDDs with our first really hot week of the spring. It was in the 80's for 4 days that week.”
Why not add this component to your tulip study next year?
Surprise Garden! Don't Tred on Our Tulips
In Aspen Colorado, Denise Vetromille's class had a great solution for protecting their tulip garden from being trampled during the non-blooming time. Students in this class made their own garden markers! Using watercolors they painted large tulips. These pieces of art were then laminated and made into stakes for the garden. After a surprise spring snowstorm the garden was still visible!
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Special
Aspen garden tulip markers |
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In Tune with Time: Open and Close
During the time your tulips are blooming you have the perfect opportunity to study one of the laws of nature. Have you ever noticed that your tulip flowers are closed in the morning? When do they open and when do they close? This phenomenon is waiting for you to investigate!
1. Keep an eye on
your flowers and record what time of day they open and close. Do they
open at the same time every day?
2. Monitor the temperature. Does the temperature affect them?
3. Does it make a difference whether it is sunny or cloudy?
4. Do the flowers open quickly or gradually?
5. Do older blooms act the same as younger blooms?
6. If you have tulips blooming in more than one location: Do the flowers
open and close at the same time in both locations?
What happens if you cut the flowers and bring them
inside?
If you don't have blooming tulips, try this experiment with dandelions
instead. If you have both tulips and dandelions blooming, compare their
opening and closing times.
Challenge Question #18:
"Keep and eye on your tulip (or dandelion) flowers. What time do they open, and what time do they close? What factors affect your flowers' opening and closing? Why do you think they open in the daytime and close all night?"
(To respond to these questions, please follow the instructions below.)
Tulips and Cryogenics: A Cool Experiment
Ever wonder why tulips surprised by spring ice, snow and cold temperatures almost always survive with little or no damage to their leaves? Is this true for all plants? Let’s explore this question. First, expand your vocabulary with some big, science-sized words. Cryogenics and cryology represent a branch of physics that studies very low temperatures and their effects. The prefix "cryo" comes from the Greek word "kruos," which means extreme cold. The suffixes "genics" and "logy" come from the words for "producing" and "study.” When you put them together, you get the words "cryogenics," and "cryology," the production of very low temperatures and the study of their effects.
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Albany, NY 04/05/03 credit Margolis |
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What Happens when Plant Cells Freeze?
Living tissue is composed mainly of tiny cells. These cells contain a
lot of water and other substances dissolved in the water. When vegetable
material is placed in a very cold environment the water in the cells rapidly
freezes. The water then expands. A plant cell has very little “give,”
or resiliency. This is because plant cells have a unique structure. Plants
don’t have skeletons in the way many animals do. For structural
support, plant cells have rigid cell walls.
What is it that makes some plant leaves die when they freeze while others
don't?
Try This!
First, what happens to freezing plant cells? Fill a plastic container
to the very top with water and place the cover on. Place the sealed container
into a plastic bag and seal the bag well. Put the whole package into the
freezer. Check on the container a day or two later.
PREDICT WHAT WILL HAPPEN AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK SO.
Now try comparing 2 different kinds of leaves when they freeze.
Place some tulip leaves and some lettuce leaves into a bag and put it
in the freezer.
PREDICT WHAT WILL HAPPEN AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK SO.
A few hours to a day later remove them from the freezer. Take the leaves
out of the bag and observe their texture. Do they feel stiff? Can you
snap or break them by folding? Let the leaves thaw to room temperature.
Did the freezing temperatures change the leaves? Describe how they are
similar and how they are different.
Challenge Question #19:
" 1. How are a sealed container of water and a plant cell similar?
2. How would you describe the frozen leaves after they thaw?
3. Is there a difference between the two kinds of leaves? What causes the difference?"
How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:
IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message.
1. Address an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-tulip@learner.org
2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge
Question #
3. In the body of EACH message, give your answer to ONE of the questions
above.
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