Pollination & Seed Dispersal
Understand the life cycle of flowering plants including pollination, seed formation, and seed dispersal
What a learner can do afterwards
- Describe the stages: pollination → fertilisation → seed formation → seed dispersal
- Explain at least two methods of seed dispersal (wind, animal, water, explosion)
- Describe pollination as the transfer of pollen from one flower to another, often by insects or wind
The lesson
A flower can turn into a fruit full of seeds. It starts with pollination: pollen moves from one flower to another. Bees and other insects often carry it, and sometimes the wind does the job instead.
A bee lands on a flower to drink its nectar, and pollen sticks to its fuzzy legs. The bee carries that pollen to the next flower it visits. Once the pollen reaches the right spot inside, fertilisation happens and a seed starts to grow.
Once seeds are ready, they need to travel away from the parent plant. Wind carries light, fluffy seeds like dandelion fluff. Animals carry sticky seeds stuck in their fur, or eat fruit and drop the seeds far away. Water floats seeds like coconuts to new shores. Some seed pods dry out and burst, flinging their seeds through the air.
Look for clues to guess how a seed travels: fluff or wings mean wind, hooks or juicy fruit mean animals, and a floaty shell means water.
A flower makes seeds through pollination and fertilisation, and those seeds travel by wind, animal, water, or bursting pods to grow new plants.
Watch it
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.