Leaves the factories of green plants

Plant Parts - Leaves
Leaves are the food making factories of green plants. Leaves come in many different shapes and sizes. Leaves can be simple. They are made of a single leaf blade connected by a petiole to the stem. An oak leaf or a maple leaf are examples. A compound leaf is a leaf made up of separate leaflets attached by a petiole to the stem like an ash or a locust.

Leaves are made to catch light and have openings to allow water and air to come and go. The outer surface of the leaf has a waxy coating called a cuticle which protects the leaf. Veins carry water and nutrients within the leaf.

Leaves are the site of the food making process called photosynthesis. In this process, carbon dioxide and water in the presence of chlorophyll (the green pigment) and light energy are changed into glucose (a sugar). This energy rich sugar is the source of food used by most plants.

Photosynthesis is unique to green plants! Photosynthesis supplies food for the plant and oxygen for other forms of life.

A green plant helped make the oxygen you are breathing today.

Plant Parts - Flowers
Flowers not only look pretty but, in fact, are important in making seeds. Flowers have some basic parts. The female part is the pistil. The pistil usually is located in the center of the flower and is made up of three parts: the stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is the sticky knob at the top of the pistil. It is attached to the long, tubelike structure called the style. The style leads to the ovary that contains the female egg cells called ovules.

The male parts are called stamens and usually surround the pistil. The stamen is made up of two parts: the anther and filament. The anther produces pollen (male reproductive cells). The filament holds the anther up.

During the process of fertilization, pollen lands on the stigma, a tube grows down the style and enters the ovary. Male reproductive cells travel down the tube and join with the ovule, fertilizing it. The fertilized ovule becomes the seed, and the ovary becomes the fruit.

Petals are also important parts of the flower, because they help attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies and bats. You can also see tiny green leaf-like parts called sepals at the base of the flower. They help to protect the developing bud.

The fruit is the ripened ovary of a plant containing the seeds. After fertilization, the ovary swells and becomes either fleshy or hard and dry to protect the developing seeds. Many fruits help seeds spread (maple seeds). Many things we call vegetables are really fruits such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans.

Every seed is a tiny plant (embryo) with leaves, stems, and root parts waiting for the right things to happen to make it germinate and grow. Seeds are protected by a coat. This coat can be thin or thick and hard. Thin coats don't protect the embryo well. But thick coats can let the embryo survive some tough conditions.

The seed also contains a short-term food supply called the endosperm which is formed at fertilization but is not part of the embryo. It is used by the embryo to help its growth. In the bean that is shown, the endosperm is no longer there. It has been used for the growht of the embryo, and most of its nutrients and energy are now in a different form within the tissues of the cotyledon.

Plants with one cotyledon (like corn) are called monocots. If they have two cotyledons (like beans), they are called dicots.

Seeds are a plant's way of getting from one area to another by either wind, water or animals.
Do you know what all plants need to grow? Detective LePlant has discovered seven things:--

1.Room to Grow
2.Temperature
3.Light
4.Water
5.Air
6.Nutrients
7.Time

Earth scientists are the doctors who are sure to help mother Earth recover fast from her illness.

Mother earth is sick? Don't worry.
Earth scientists are the doctors who are sure to help mother Earth recover fast from her illness.


Your body has natural resources also

HEART - pumps blood carrying oxygen and nutrients through your body

LUNGS - to breathe in fresh air and breathe out stale air

LIVER AND KIDNEYS -to clean away toxins


All parts of your body work together
to keep you alive and healthy.

What happens if you get an infection in the
natural resources of your body?

You get sick and don't feel well.

The infection is toxic pollution
It harms your natural resources.
It harms your body's environment.

Then you need a special investigator to find out what is making you sick and to help you get well.

Your body's special investigator is your doctor.

The doctor can tell you what medicine to take to get rid of the toxic infection, so your body can get healthy again.

Earth's natural resources need to stay healthy too!

WATER
To clean the atmosphere and the environment,
and to nourish plants and animals
SOIL
To filter the water, provide nourishment for plants and some animals,
and recycle material to be used again
PLANTS AND TREES
To absorb carbon from the atmosphere and release oxygen.
To supply food and medicine, and provide shelter for plants and animals
ATMOSPHERE
Air surrounding the planet containing
nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, other gases, and many tiny particles


To protect life on the planet, shielding it from harmful radiation from the sun.
To provide a blanket of warmth around the planet

The atmosphere is being damaged by carbon dioxide overload,
so more harmful radiation is reaching us on Earth -
and the blanket of warmth is getting warmer!
What happens when pollution gets in Earth's natural resources?
They become impure and poisonous,
and then plants and animals get sick.

Toxics and pollution harm the Earth's environments,
just like they harm our bodies.

The Earth's doctors are the Earth Scientists.
They investigated the environments' illnesses
and said:

POLLUTION OF AIR, WATERS AND SOIL
CLEAR-CUTTING FORESTS
DUMPING TOXIC WASTE
CUTTING OLD-GROWTH TREES
HARMFUL FISHING METHODS
DEPLETING AND WASTING NATURAL RESOURCES
DESTRUCTION OF OZONE LAYER
DESTRUCTION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
EXTINCTION OF SPECIES


REMEMBER TO

REDUCE - REUSE - RECYCLE

AND SAVE ENERGY

international Earth Observation Summit

In April of 2004, at the international Earth Observation Summit, 47 nations and the European Commission established a "system of Earth observation systems" that will revolutionize the understanding of how Earth works. This agreement committed to scientifically connect the world for the benefit of people and economies around the globe. "Our environment knows no boundaries." We all breathe the same air, drink the same water, and cause pollution. "Working together, we can find the solutions and affect the changes needed to protect people, promote prosperity and preserve our planet." "For the first time we'll be able to take the pulse of the planet."
GEO-II: Second Plenary Session of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO)
14-15 December 2005 Geneva, Switzerland


Conclusion: main findings
Four main findings on the links between ecosystems and human well-being: More...

10.1 Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems faster and more extensively than in any period in human history. This has been due largely to rapidly growing demands for food, freshwater, timber, fiber, and fuel. The result has been a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth. More...

10.2 The changes made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial gains in human well-being and economic development, but these gains have been achieved at growing costs. These costs include the degradation of many ecosystem services, increased risks of abrupt changes, and increased poverty for some groups of people. These problems, unless addressed, will substantially reduce the benefits that future generations get from ecosystems. More...

10.3 This degradation of ecosystem services could get significantly worse during the next 50 years. It is a barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. More...

10.4 Reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services is a challenge. This challenge can be partially met in the future under scenarios involving significant changes to policies, institutions, and practices. However, these required actions will have to be substantial when compared to the actions currently taken. More...

धरती को बचाने की कोशिश

Scientists are working very hard on developing new ways to use clean energy sources which come from renewable resources - like wind power and direct solar energy from the sun. Approximately every 40 minutes the sun sends as much energy to Earth as all the people on Earth use in a year! But, we have to get industry to make more products that use the safe environmentally-friendly energy, like solar-powered vehicles, and at a price people can afford. Other technologies, such as fuel cells, are under development to provide energy sources that minimally harm the environment. People need to change their thinking and refuse products that damage the environment.

Good news

Is there any GOOD news?


YES! OUR EARTH WILL BE SAVED!!!!!!!!!!

Scientists are working very hard on developing new ways to use clean energy sources which come from renewable resources - like wind power and direct solar energy from the sun. Approximately every 40 minutes the sun sends as much energy to Earth as all the people on Earth use in a year! But, we have to get industry to make more products that use the safe environmentally-friendly energy, like solar-powered vehicles, and at a price people can afford. Other technologies, such as fuel cells, are under development to provide energy sources that minimally harm the environment. People need to change their thinking and refuse products that damage the environment.

global warming

The burning of fossil fuels in factories to make products and power, and the fuels used by trucks, automobiles and jet planes have caused acid rain and a great increase in carbon dioxide and pollution in the atmosphere. And forests have been destroyed which used to absorb carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide traps heat in our lower atmosphere.
Scientists believe that human activities such as these have led to global warming.
Global warming (worldwide increased temperature) is causing glaciers to melt, seas to rise, climates to change, violent weather, destruction of coral reef ecosystems, crops to die, famine, floods, topsoil to wash away, droughts, and the loss of plants and animals.

natural resources

NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCES


Such things as fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) and minerals
cannot be reproduced and therefore can be used up.*
These are called non-renewable resources.

Humans are using up natural resources at a great rate
and at a great cost to the health of the natural environment
and life on Earth.

How can natural resources
affect our environment unnaturally?

It is not the natural resources by themselves that harm the Earth's environment -
it is what humans do with the natural resources that cause the problems
to the environment and to the health of living things, including other human beings.

The burning of fossil fuels in factories to make products and power, and the fuels used by trucks, automobiles and jet planes have caused acid rain and a great increase in carbon dioxide and pollution in the atmosphere. And forests have been destroyed which used to absorb carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide traps heat in our lower atmosphere.

Scientists believe that human activities such as these have led to global warming.

join the dots activity

Connect the Dots then Color.

puzzle

Butterfly Word Search
Find all the words then put the left-over letters on the lines to spell a secret message.

life cycles of some common animals

Refer this site for life cycles of some common animals

http://esd.iu5.org/LessonPlans/LifeCycle/animals.htm

nonflowering plants

Algae and fungi
Green algae from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904.The algae comprise several different groups of organisms that produce energy through photosynthesis. However, they are not classified within the Kingdom Plantae but mostly in the Kingdom Protista. Most conspicuous are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble terrestrial plants, but are classified among the green, red, and brown algae. These and other algal groups also include various single-celled organisms.

The embryophytes developed from green algae; the two groups are collectively referred to as the green plants or Viridiplantae. The Kingdom Plantae is often taken to mean this monophyletic grouping. With a few exceptions among the green algae, all such forms have cell walls containing cellulose and chloroplasts containing chlorophylls a and b, and store food in the form of starch. They undergo closed mitosis without centrioles, and typically have mitochondria with flat cristae.

The chloroplasts of green plants are surrounded by two membranes, suggesting they originated directly from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. The same is true of the red algae, and the two groups are generally believed to have a common origin (see Archaeplastida). In contrast, most other algae have chloroplasts with three or four membranes. They are not close relatives of the green plants, presumably in origin acquiring chloroplasts separately from ingested or symbiotic green and red algae.

Unlike embryophytes and algae, fungi are not photosynthetic, but are saprotrophs: obtaining food by breaking down and absorbing surrounding materials. Fungi are not plants, but were historically treated as closely related to plants, and were considered to be in the purview of botanists. It has long been recognized that fungi are evolutionarily closer to animals than to plants, but they still are covered more in depth in introductory botany courses and are not necessarily touched upon in introductory zoology courses. Most fungi are formed by microscopic structures called hyphae, which may or may not be divided into cells but contain eukaryotic nuclei. Fruiting bodies, of which mushrooms are most familiar, are the reproductive structures of fungi. They are not related to any of the photosynthetic groups, but are close relatives of animals. Therefore, the fungi are in a kingdom of their own.

plant facts

Plants are a major group of living things including familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, and mosses. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, have been estimated to exist. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 15,000 bryophytes. Plants are mostly autotrophs, organisms that obtain energy from sunlight or organisms that make their own food. Most plants carry out a process called photosynthesis, which occurs in the chloroplasts of plants.

Amazing fact about planet Jupiter

Days go by Quickly on Jupiter

Each day is of just 9 hours and 50 minutes.But,............................You know!
A year on Jupiter is much longer than on Earth------------Each one lasts nearly 12 of our years.So,....there are nearly 10,000 Jupiter days in one Jupiter year.A LONG TIME between ..............................Birthdays.Isn't that amazing?

plantgrowth

Plant Reproduction

Vegetative Reproduction in plants
Vegetative reproduction is asexual reproduction—other terms that apply are vegetative propagation or vegetative multiplication. Vegetative growth is enlargement of the individual plant; vegetative reproduction is any process that results in new plant "individuals" without production of seeds (see The Seed below) or spores. It is both a natural process in many, many species as well as one utilized or encouraged by horticulturists and farmers to obtain quantities of economically valuable plants. In this respect, it is a form of cloning that has been carried out by humankind for thousands of years and by "plants" for hundreds of millions of years.

Read Vegetative Reproduction (Follow all links)

[edit] Sexual Reproduction

[edit] The Flower
The flower is the reproductive organ of plants classified as angiosperms—that is, the flowering plants comprising the Division Magnoliophyta. All plants have the means and corresponding structures for reproducing sexually, and these other cases will be explored in later chapters. However, because flowering plants are the most conspicuous plants in almost all terrestrial environments, we justifiably devote this chapter to the flowering plants alone. You will learn how other plant groups (and non-plant groups, such as fungi) reproduce sexually in Section II of the The Guide.

The basic function of a flower is to produce seeds through sexual reproduction. Seeds are the next generation, and serve as the primary method in most plants by which individuals of the species are dispersed across the landscape. Actual dispersal is, in most species, a function of the fruit: structural parts that typically surround the seed. But the seed contains the germ of life of the next generation.

Read Plant sexuality (Follow links you find interesting, concentrating on acquiring a grasp of the terminology)
Read The Flower (Follow links you find interesting, but at minimum read each of the following articles)
Read calyx - the sepals
Read corolla - the petals
Read androecium - the stamens
Read gynoecium - the pistil(s)
Be sure to read about and understand the meaning of each of the following terms: androecium, anthesis, calyx, carpel, corolla, gynoecium, inferior ovary, nectary, perigynous, petal, pistil, pollen, sepal, stamen, superior ovary, syncarpous.
Read Inflorescence
Be sure to read about and understand the meaning of each of the following terms: bract, inflorescence, panicle, raceme, spadix, spikelet.
Questions:

5-1. Do you think the flower structure is in any way responsible for the considerable
success of flowering plants in populating the earth?

[edit] The Seed and Germination
the primary purpose of the seed is one of preserving the continuity of life—starting a new generation in a new physical location. For large plants (shrubs and trees), this can be especially important because successful germination and growth close to the parent may be difficult or impossible; the established plant monopolizes light and water resources in its immediate vicinity. Seeds can also serve the function of overwintering or surviving harsh conditions. The entire generation—every individual—may die in the Fall or the dry season. In many annual species, only the seed exists during unfavorable dry or cold conditions.

The Seed (Follow all links on anatomy and function)
Read Germination

[edit] The Fruit
The fruit is the actual agent of dispersal in most flowering plants.

The Fruit

enjoying science

Enjoying Science

Seed Germination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemination
Germination is the process where growth emerges from a period of dormancy. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the growth of hyphae from fungal spores, is also germination. In a more general sense, germination can imply anything expanding into greater being from a small existence or germ.

Germination is the first stage of the making of the seedling. The seed of a higher plant is a small package produced in a flower or cone containing an embryo and stored food reserves. Under favorable conditions, the seed begins to germinate, and the embryonic tissues resume growth, developing towards a seedling.

Dicot germination
The part of the plant that emerges from the seed first is the embryonic root, termed radicle or primary root. This allows the seedling to become anchored in the ground and start absorbing water. After the root, the embryonic shoot emerges from the seed. The shoot consists of three main parts: the cotyledons (seed leaves), the section of shoot below the cotyledons (hypocotyl), and the section of shoot above the cotyledons (epicotyl). The way the shoot emerges differs between plant groups.

Monocot germination
In monocot seeds, the embryo's radicle and cotyledon are covered by a coleorhiza and coleoptile, respectively. The coleorhiza is the first part to grow out of the seed, followed by the radicle. The coleoptile is then pushed up through the ground until it reaches the surface. There, it stops elongating and the first leaves emerge through an opening at its tip. Commonly, the primary root dies off and the plant develops shoot-borne roots.

Requirements for seed germination
Seed germination depends on many factors, both internal and external. The most important external factors include: water, oxygen, temperature, light and the correct soil conditions. Every variety of seed requires a different set of variables for successful germination. This depends greatly on the individual seed variety and is closely linked to the ecological conditions in the plants' natural habitat.

Water
Germination requires moist conditions. Mature seeds are typically extremely dry and need to take up significant amounts of water before metabolism can resume. The uptake of water into seeds is called imbibition and leads to a marked swelling. The pressure caused by imbibing water aids in cracking the seed coat for germination. When seeds are formed, most plants store large amounts of food, such as starch, proteins, or oils, for the embryo inside the seed. When the seed imbibes water, hydrolytic enzymes are activated that break down these stored food resources and allow the seedling to germinate and grow non-photosynthetically until it reaches the light. Once the seedling starts growing, it requires a continuous supply of water and nutrients.

Oxygen
Most seeds respond best when water levels are enough to moisten the seeds but not soak them, and when oxygen is readily available. Once the seed coat is cracked, the germinating seedling requires oxygen for its metabolism. If the soil is waterlogged, it might cut off the necessary oxygen supply and prevent the seed from germinating as it prevents aerobic respiration, which is the main source for the seedling's energy until it starts to photosynthesize.


[edit] Temperature and light
Seeds germinate over a wide range of temperatures, with many preferring temperatures slightly higher than room-temperature. Often, seeds have a set temperature range for germination and will not germinate above or below a certain temperature. In addition, some seeds may require exposure to light or to cold temperature (vernalization) to break dormancy before they can germinate. As long as the seed is in its dormant state, it will not germinate even if conditions are favorable. For example, seeds requiring the cold of winter are inhibited from germinating if they never experience frost. Some seeds will only germinate when temperatures reach hundreds of degrees, as during a forest fire. Without fire, they are unable to crack their seed coats. Many seeds in forest settings will not germinate until an opening in the canopy allows them to receive sufficient light for the growing seedling.

Hormonal control
Besides environmental factors, germination and dormancy in seeds are also influenced by plant hormones. The hormone absciscic acid affects seed dormancy and prevents germination, while the hormone gibberellin breaks dormancy and induces seed germination. This effect is used in brewing where barley is treated with gibberellin to ensure uniform seed germination to produce barley malt.