What's Alive?

In the "What's Alive?" activity, we were given beans, corn, a piece of straw, a cotton ball, toothpick and, rocks. We also had to go outside and find two living things. My group found a beetle type thing and a moth. We had to classify each thing as living, never living, once was living or comes from a living thing. After we classified, everything went inside a piece of wet paper towel, was wrapped up, and placed in a plastic baggy where it sat in the classroom window for a week. Then, we got to open the baggies and see what was living. Our moth and beetle were both dead, sadly, but what we found inside was so cool.

The beans and corn had grown roots! I should've known that was going to happen, but I really didn't realize it at the time. The root system was so large and complex, it was amazing. I thought this was a really cool activity and I will definitely use it someday in my classroom. I learned that even though something might seem like it is dead now, it is actually living. We had classified the beans and corn as once living things, when they were actually alive.