Scary Situation: Look out for that seed! It’s traveling fast and trying to find a green patch of grass! Once it gets there, you better beware, this seed’s ability to spread will give you a scare!

Goal

To learn how plants can spread quickly by making large numbers of seeds

Time: 30 minutes

Materials:

• Apple halves (enough for each student)
• Spoons
• Paper towels
• Calculators
• Pencil
• Paper

Activity Steps:

1. Use the spoon to removal the seeds from you apple half. Count them.
2. Add all the seed counts in your class. Divide by the number of apples to find the average seed count per apple.
3. Say an apple tree grows 400 apples. About how many seeds would it make?
4. Challenge: Use the facts about purple loosestrife below to figure out how many seeds are produced by 1 acre of purple loosestrife. Then calculate how many new plants those seeds would make.

Purple loosestrife Facts:

Seeds produced by a one purple loosestrife stem: 300,000

Stems per plant: 30

Plants per acre: 2,500

5. Do you think every purple loosestrife seed really makes new plants? Why or why not? How does massive seed production help and invader species take over?