Plants

Plant Parts

Plant parts do different things for the plant.What Do Different Plant Parts Do?

Roots

Roots act like straws absorbing water and minerals from the soil. Tiny root hairs stick out of the root, helping in the absorption. Roots help to anchor the plant in the soil so it does not fall over. Roots also store extra food for future use.

Stems

Stems do many things. They support the plant. They act like the plant's plumbing system, conducting water and nutrients from the roots and food in the form of glucose from the leaves to other plant parts. Stems can be herbaceous like the bendable stem of a daisy or woody like the trunk of an oak tree.

Leaves

Most plants' food is made in their leaves. Leaves are designed to capture sunlight which the plant uses to make food through a process called photosynthesis.

Flowers

Flowers are the reproductive part of most plants. Flowers contain pollen and tiny eggs called ovules. After pollination of the flower and fertilization of the ovule, the ovule develops into a fruit.

Fruit

Fruit provides a covering for seeds. Fruit can be fleshy like an apple or hard like a nut.

Seeds

Seeds contain new plants. Seeds form in fruit.

Plants

The Needs of a Plant

Plants

Plant Life Cycle

Plants

BIOLOGY OF PLANTS

Plants are alive, just like people and animals. How do we know this? Living things all do certain things:

• They grow and die.

• They need energy, nutrients, air, and water.

• They produce young.

• They are made up of cells.

• They react to what's around them.

Living Things and Non Living Things

Classification of Living Things

We can group things into groups according to their similarities and differences. For e.g., according to their shapes, sizes, colours and patterns.

Classification helps us make meanings of things in systematic and meaningful ways. This will help us to learn and to know more about things around us.

We can classify living things into groups such as

• animals
• plants
• fungi
• micro-organisms

Classification helps us identify living things and study them.

Living Things and Non Living Things

Differences of Living and Non-Living Things

The table below helps to summarize the differences between living and non-living things.

Living Things	Non-Living Things
Need air, food and water to survive	Do not need air, food and water
Can grow	Cannot Grow
Can move by themselves	Cannot move by themselves
Can respond to changes around them	Cannot respond to changes
Can reproduce	Cannot reproduce
Will die eventually	Will not die

Living Things and Non Living Things

Characteristics of Non-Living Things

Non-living things do not grow.

Non-living things cannot move by themselves.

Non-living things do not die.

Non-living things cannot reproduce.

 

Living Things and Non Living Things

Characteristics of Living Things  

Living things need air, food and water to live. Living things will die quickly without air and water. However, they can survive for a shot period without food.

 

Living things can grow. As they grow, their shapes, sizes and appearances may change.

Living things are able to move by themselves. They move around to look for food, water and shelter. Sometimes, they move to try to escape from their predators.

Living things can respond to changes around them.

Living things will die when they become old and as their body parts fail to work.

Living things are able to reproduce to have young.

Living Things and Non Living Things

Diversity of Things around Us

Living Things

Things around us can be grouped into living and non-living things.

Things that are alive are called living things

Things that are not alive are called non-living things.

Non-Living Things

         Some non-living things are made from things that were once alive.

                         

    Made from things that were once alive

Green House Effect

What is the green house effect?

There are two common meanings of the term "greenhouse effect". There is a "natural" greenhouse effect that keeps the Earth's climate warm and habitable. There is also the "man-made" greenhouse effect, which is the enhancement of Earth's natural greenhouse effect by the addition of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels (mainly petroleum, coal, and natural gas). 

In order to understand how the greenhouse effect operates, we need to first understand "infrared radiation". Greenhouse gases reduce the rate at which the Earth's surface loses infrared radiation to outer space. Because one way to increase the temperature of anything is to reduce its rate of energy loss to its surroundings, this makes the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere warmer than they would otherwise be. 

You can think of greenhouse gases as sort of a "blanket" for infrared radiation -- they keep the Earth's surface and lower layers of the atmosphere warmer, and the upper layers colder, than if the greenhouse gases were not there. 

About 80-90% of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds. Most of the rest is due to carbon dioxide, methane, and a few other minor gases. While the remaining gases in the atmosphere (e.g. nitrogen, oxygen) also absorb and emit a small amount of infrared radiation, their radiative effect on temperature is so weak that they can be neglected. While methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, there is far less of it in the atmosphere. 

It is the carbon dioxide concentration that is increasing, due to the burning of fossil fuels (as well as from some rainforest burning). Compared to a pre-industrial atmospheric concentration of around 270 parts per million (ppm), the average concentration has increased to close to 400 ppm in 2012. This causes the man-made portion of the greenhouse effect, and it is believed by many scientists to be responsible for the global warming of the last 50 years or more. 

Also, the concentration of methane, although extremely small (measured in parts per billion), has also increased in recent decades contributing somewhat to the strengthening of the greenhouse effect. The reasons for this increase, though, remain uncertain.

What the Greenhouse Effect Isn't

Since there is considerable misunderstanding and misconceptions regarding the greenhouse effect, it is useful to list a few of the things the greenhouse effect is not: 

1) The greenhouse effect does not operate like a greenhouse that plants are grown in. Plant greenhouses stay warm because they are enclosed, preventing warm air from escaping. In the open atmosphere, warm air that builds up at the surface rises ("convects") and mixes with air from higher altitudes, limiting warming near the surface. The atmospheric greenhouse effect is radiative, not convective. 

2) The greenhouse effect does not require solar radiation (sunlight) to operate. The greenhouse effect would still exist if there was no sun, and the climate system was instead warmed from below by geothermal energy. 

3) The greenhouse effect cannot be demonstrated with a jar or other enclosure because there is too little greenhouse gas involved. Thousands of feet of atmospheric depth are required for the greenhouse effect to have a measurable effect on temperature. 

The greenhouse effect is entirely due to the fact that the atmosphere absorbs and emits infrared energy, combined with a heat source to warm the bottom of the atmosphere (in our case, the Sun) and the cold depths of outer space above the top of the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases (and clouds) reduce the ability of the Earth's surface to cool, thus raising its temperature above what it would be without those greenhouse gases. 

The Nine Planets Solar System

      This article is an overview of the history, mythology, and current scientific knowledge of the planets, moons and other objects in our solar system. Each page has the text and NASA's images, some have sounds and movies, most provide references to additional related information. In association with the  Solar System Scope, it also has an interactive tour of the solar system (takes a while to load and opens in a new window).

   All eight planets can be seen with a small telescope; or binoculars. And large observatories continue to provide much useful information. But the possibility of getting up close with interplanetary spacecraft has revolutionized planetary science. Very little of this site would have been possible without the space program.

   Nevertheless, there's a lot that you can see with very modest equipment or even with just your own eyes. Past generations of people found beauty and a sense of wonder contemplating the night sky. Today's scientific knowledge further enhances and deepens that experience. And you can share in it by simply going out in the evening and looking up.

   The IAU has changed the definition of "planet" so that Pluto no longer qualifies. There are now officially only eight planets in our solar system. Of course this change in terminology does not affect what's actually out there. In the end, it's not very important how we classify the various objects in our solar system. What is important is to learn about their physical nature and their histories.

Learn Our Five Senses with Fun

Let's learn about our 5 senses with fun !!

Barney's Five Senses Song

Animals Park Perth, Australia August 2012.

science game