Pollination

An alien species of Busy Bees travelling on their spaceship have landed on Earth! Keen to explore the flowering meadows, they want to observe how pollination happens on our planet. Your students will join the Busy Bees – shrinking down to explore and experience the world of flowering plants in larger-than-life detail.

The scene provides an overview of the process of pollination of flowering plants. As a plant reproductive strategy, insect and wind pollination is modelled to illustrate how pollen is transferred from one plant to another and how pollen eventually reaches the plant's ova for fertilisation.

Users should explore the flowering meadow to observe the structure of flowering plants, understand how wind and insects facilitate pollination, to compare the similarities and differences between the two methods, and inside the spaceship, they will be introduced to how pollination can be used to selectively breed plants in a laboratory.


# Learning objectives

Describe the Pollination Process{.info}

Compare Insect and Wind Pollination{.info}

Explain how Pollination can be Used in Selective Breeding{.info}

# Flowering Plants{.objective .objective1}

In this section, students will observe the structure of flowering plants. They can compare and describe the similarities and differences between wind-pollinated and animal-pollinated flowers. **Flowering plants have both the male and female reproductive organs. Female: Pistil, Stigma, Style, Ovary, Ovule. Male: Stamen, Anther, Filament, Pollen. In addition, they have petals and sepals.**

Students should discuss the structure of a flowering plant. Students should be encouraged to make a comparative description between wind and animal-pollinated flowers using examples from the scene.

# Pollination{.objective .objective2}

In this section, the pollination process will be described. Flowers need to transfer pollen to other flowers of the same species to achieve fertilisation regardless of whether it's wind or animal pollination. **The process involves pollen from the anther of one flower reaching the stigma of another flower of the same species. Once this has been achieved, a tube-like structure extends down to the ovaries to transfer the pollen's DNA to the ova, fertilising it.**

Students should be encouraged to explore and find the flower that models pollination. You can encourage students to describe the pollination process using the correct terminology.

# Selective Breeding{.objective .objective3}

In this section, an overview of selective breeding will be described. Students will be introduced to the concept of how pollen can be manually transferred between plants with desirable features.

Students should be asked to use the model in the lab to describe how selective breeding is carried out. They can also interact with the flower model to consolidate their knowledge of the structure of a flowering plant. Students can label the parts of a flowering plant on the pollination worksheet in the downloadable student quiz.

# Teacher Resources

### Download Teacher Notes

[](https://avnfs.com/QFxbv9yoVI4rDlZQKy96S_RCUUtfyrIIXarHHmwvYic?size=1364990&type=application%2Fpdf&name=Pollination+-+Rebuild+Teacher+Notes+1.pdf)

### Student Quiz Answers Document

[](https://avnfs.com/BOpPMJ6dEAro_lxdHCG3pF0om4V75LfzKwtlfpultHg?size=998886&type=application%2Fpdf&name=Pollination+-+Rebuild+Teacher+Notes+2.pdf)

### Download Student Quiz Document

[](https://avnfs.com/jLbkId9e6dlTnAxnwcHP7zWtAumENgLM82EpEe-qFFY?size=174385&type=application%2Fpdf&name=Pollination+-+Rebuild+Teacher+Notes+3.pdf)