Next Generation Science Storylines

After looking at this harvest corn decoration our teacher brought in, we wondered if it was real corn or not.   We wanted to dissect it to see if it was made of the same structures as the corn we eat.  We found some similarities (both have cobs and kernels), but we also found some differences (in hardness and color).   We were still wondering if this is real corn.  Some students suggested we plant it to see if it would grow.  Others suggested we keep the wet corn in water and see if anything happens to it.

Each day we check in on our corn in the water, we record what we notice and we record what we wonder.  The more we notice, the more we wonder.  And the more we wonder, the more ideas we have for what might be going on as well as ideas for new investigations we want to conduct.

As we kept observing our corn, from one day to the next, some of us argued that it was growing.  But that led us to realize that we couldn't really prove it was growing unless we started taking measurements of some of these structures and recoding them, so we could compare a measurement from one day to the next.

As we kept checking in on our harvest corn in water near the window, we noticed something odd after a while.  The green things coming from it were bending toward the window.  This got us wondering if plants need light to grow.  So we conducted an investigation to try to answer that question.   After leaving some of our corn in the dark, we started noticed some changes in what was happening to it.