Speedy Seeds!

This week, we explored a new Mystery Science question that had us take a closer look at the way seeds are made. 

In the mystery, we learned about a tree species that was found growing halfway around the world on an uncharted island, and it was our job to explore possible ways it could have arrived there. One possible theory was in the design of the seed itself--some seeds are specially designed to carry it as far away from the tree as possible when it falls to ensure it has the best chance of growing. While some seeds are spread by animals, others need to do the moving on their own! So we explored three different seed designs to see which one worked the best at getting seeds out of  the "Zone of Darkness" 

We tested spiral seeds,

rotocopter seeds,

and glider seeds

While many of the seeds made it out of the "Zone of Darkness" successfully, the rotocopter seed was the least successful and although the glider seed made it out more times, the spiral seed had the best "stats"! 

We thought it would be interesting to test all the seeds the same amount of times to see if our results would change! It was a lot of fun to make and test out our various seed designs, we will be on the lookout for these types of seeds outside as we continue to explore plants!