Year 2 · Science · 2 minutes
What do plants need to grow?
Light, water, air, soil with nutrients, and space to grow.
Key terms
- root
- The part of a plant that grows down and drinks up water from the soil.
- shoot
- The part that pushes up out of the soil, with its first leaves.
- nutrients
- The goodness in soil that plants need to grow.
- fair test
- An experiment where you keep everything the same and change just one thing.
- wilt
- To droop, which a plant does when it has no water.
Transcript
Kia ora, gardeners! Here is a tiny bean seed. What does it need to grow into a big, strong plant? Let's find out!
We plant the seed in soil and give it some water. First, a root pokes out and grows down. Then a shoot pushes up, out of the soil. Its first leaves open up in the sunshine!
Roots drink up water from the soil. The water travels up the stem, all the way to the leaves. Without water, a plant droops and wilts.
Plants need light, too. Leaves use sunlight to make food for the plant. Look! The stem bends towards the window, to reach the light.
Plants need air. Tiny holes in the leaves let air in. They need soil, with goodness called nutrients. And they need space, so their roots and leaves can spread out.
Let's do a fair test! We grow two bean plants the same way. Same pot, same soil, same water. We change just one thing. One goes in a dark cupboard. One goes on a sunny windowsill.
A week or two later, look! The plant in the dark is tall, thin and pale yellow. The plant in the light is green and strong. So plants need light to grow well.
So, plants need light, water, air, and soil with nutrients. And some space to grow. What will you grow in your garden?
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1sciencebuddies.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/plant-basic-nee…
- Plants need light, water, air and nutrients from the soil (and room to grow) to grow well.
- 2gpb.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/watch_it_sprout_te…
- When a seed germinates the root grows down into the soil first, then the shoot grows up toward the air and light.
- 3science-sparks.com/bean-in-a-jar
- Light is not needed for a bean seed to germinate, but it is needed for the plant to grow well.
- Shoots bend and grow toward the light when lit from one side (phototropism).
- 4see.leeds.ac.uk/enviroweb/biosphere/3_photosynthesis/photo4.php
- Plants use sunlight to make their own food (photosynthesis) in their leaves.
- Roots take up water, which travels up the stem to the leaves; without enough water a plant wilts.
- Leaves take in air (carbon dioxide) through tiny pores called stomata.
- 5bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Botany/Botany_(Ha_Morrow_and_Algie…
- Bean seedlings grown in darkness are etiolated: tall, thin (elongated stems), pale/yellow with small leaves, because they lack chlorophyll; light-grown seedlings are green and sturdy.
- 6sciencelearn.org.nz/videos/2066-fair-testing
- A fair test changes only one thing and keeps everything else the same.
- 7sciencelearn.org.nz/images/4969-stomata
- Stomata are tiny pores in leaves (too small to see without a microscope).
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