Bernadette to the Rescue by Susan Glickman
Author:Susan Glickman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2011-09-09T00:00:00+00:00
âWow,â said Bernadette. âI guess plants are smarter than most people realize, if they can figure out such good ways to send their babies into the world.â
âYouâre absolutely right, Bernadette,â said Jenny. âNow, who can think of some other ways that seeds like to travel?â
âMaple trees make helicopters,â said Matthew. âThatâs so they can be carried away by the wind.â
âThatâs a great example,â said Jenny. âThe reason maple seeds are that shape is so that they can travel far. If the seeds get scattered in many different places by the wind, there is a better chance that some of them will grow into beautiful maple trees.â
âDandelions are the same way,â said Bernadette. âExcept that they produce even more seeds. Can you imagine if there were as many maple trees as there are dandelions? Weâd be living in a giant forest!â
âGood point, Bernadette. Oh, hello Toby!â said Jenny as the camp dog wandered over. (Probably he thought that people sitting at a picnic table would be eating a picnic.) âHave you come to join our discussion?â
The kids started to laugh at this, until Jenny said, âBelieve it or not, Iâm serious. What do you guys see on Tobyâs left paw?â
âA burr,â a girl named Maya answered.
Jenny pulled the burr off Tobyâs paw and held it up to show the campers. The dog, disappointed that there was no food around and annoyed at having his paw pulled, ran away from them and lay down under a shady tree.
âThis is another way seeds get to travelâby hitching a ride on an animal.â
âOr on a person,â said Maya. âI got burrs all over my socks at archery this morning when I went through tall grass looking for lost arrows! It was gross.â
âActually, you had something a lot like a burr on your feet already,â said Jenny.
âWhat do you mean?â Maya said, looking down at her shoes with a puzzled expression on her face.
âThose sneakers close with Velcro straps, right? Well, I have an amazing story for you. Velcro was invented by a Swiss scientist who went for a walk with his dog one day and came back covered with burrs. He put one under the microscope to figure out how it stuck to his pants. Under the microscope he saw that the burr was covered with tiny hooks. He also saw that the cloth of his pants was made of tiny loops that those hooks could easily catch onto. These observations gave him the idea for Velcro, a fastener that has hooks on one side and loops on the other.â
âCool!â said Bernadette, clapping her hands.
âYouâre just making this up,â said Matthew.
âNo, Matthew, itâs absolutely true,â Jenny said. âThere is so much we can learn from nature, if we just remember to use our senses. Observation is the first step of the scientific method.â
âWhat are the other steps?â asked Maya.
âThe second step is to use your past experience and knowledge to help you guess why things are the way you observe them to be. Scientific guesses are called hypotheses,â said Jenny.
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