Cotyledons

When we tried to germinate beans, we grew mostly mold. Now I know how to grow mold, which will be very helpful the next time I try to teach fungus. But do the kids really know much about germination?*

Friday, they read about the differences between monocots & dicots, but seemed a little vague on the notion of a seed leaf.

Today, one of the few bean experiments left hanging in the windowsill came through deus ex machina-style: While a student helped me get the LCD projector working (it's temperamental, but PowerPoint is still really useful, and you get better at the tech stuff, and the kids get better at it even faster than you do, and the kid in my class who troubleshoots desperately needs chances to show his competence, so it all works out in the end, right?), I walked around and showed off the bean plant, which had grown clear out of the bag and sprouted several mature leaves, and still had 2 little shriveled up seed-leaves hanging limply from its stem. Sometimes nature IS on my side.

*Someone on an email list suggested alfalfa sprouts as way less temperamental than beans.