Do plants Breathe?

WALT: make predictions

WALT: observe what happens

We are thinking like scientists. “Scientists ask questions and carry out investigations…”

We ask a question and then try to find out the answer. We think about what might happen and make predictions. Then we look really closely at what is happening to make our observations. We use what we have learned to try and answer our question.

Question	Do plants breathe?
Prediction	Jaxon “no, they don’t have a nose”... “maybe they can breathe?” Sasha “they breathe from water” Caleb “ they do because they suck through the little holes in the stem that they get air into” Daniel thinks plants can breathe. Heidi “Yes because they can breathe through the flower petals”...”they breathe in the wind Charlotte “Plants can breathe because you can’t see the holes in the places where bees get the honey from and that is where they breathe” Luca “Plants can breathe because if they couldn’t breathe they would go down just like if they didn’t have water” Eshaan “Plants can breathe because when we water them they grow from the sides and that is where they breathe from” Toby “Plants can breathe through the dirt because the dirt is nice and loose” Atta “Plants do breathe because when we water them they grow. They breathe after they drink the water” Kingston “Plants can breathe from their roots because their roots might have little holes in them”
Method	We went to the playground and picked some leaves. We put some water in a plastic container Then we put the leaf into the container and pushed it under the water We left the container very still in the sun on the deck We checked them every 15 minutes for an hour We drew what we could see - observational drawings
Observations	There are lots of air bubbles on the leaf. Some leaves had bigger bubbles than others.
What do we think (conclusions)	Leaves do breathe… We could see air bubbles on the leaves.
What next	We found a red leaf… “I wonder if it will breathe” said Awhina, Emily and Heidi. High 5 think it might breathe. Carter is not so sure, “It is red and almost winter. Autumn makes the leaves red and fall off the trees. It’s when they are dead”. Did the read leaf breathe? Not many air bubbles. May be a little. We don’t think the brown crinkly leaves are going to breathe. They’re dead.