Junior+A+Letter+to+Lily+and+Keannu's+crayfish

=A Letter to Lily=

//Dear Lily// //I was most interested to hear you found "spots" on the back of your leaves// //under the microscope, so I decided to do a bit of exploring.// //I already knew that there are hundreds of little dots on leaves called **stomata.**// //This was my first clue.// //Then I discovered the Ancient Greeks had a word, **stoma**, meaning "mouth".// //Aha! Another clue!// //Why do leaves need mouths? I wondered.// //Here is what I discovered....//

//Happy wikiwatching,, Mrs Stedman :)// Here's the back of my olive leaf with lots of "spots". 1 spot is called a **stoma**. More than one are **stomata**. (Ancient Greeks didn't add an "s" to make words plural as we do). This is as close as we can see with our microscopes. || Each stoma has a "mouth"!There are hundreds of stomata on each leaf - that's a lot of mouths to feed! There are 2 guard cells, one on each side of the mouth. The guard cells pull the stoma open or closed. Open lets food in. Closed stops too much water going out. || The mouth opens to eat the sun's energy and carbon dioxide from the air. Mixed with water inside the leaf this makes a sugary lunch. The guard cells also open to let some water out to cool down on a hot day. ||
 * [[image:dino_ferns-1.jpg width="251" height="233"]]
 * Closer...**
 * Even closer...**
 * A leafy lunch:**
 * [[image:leafpetiole.jpg width="245" height="248"]]
 * Why do leaves change colour in autumn?**

Leaves need lots of food to keep growing. In the winter there's not as much sun to make leafy lunches. So the plant shuts its leaves down until spring. See the **petiole**? The plant makes some special cells in the petiole which trap the food stores inside the plant for winter. ||
 * A leaf is like a paintbox...**

Paints are different colours because of different coloured **pigments**. It's the same with a leaf - chlorophyll makes green, carotenoid makes orange and yellow. After the petiole builds its food door, the leaf begins to die. The green pigment breaks down quickly and fades, leaving the gold. ||
 * Now for something completely different....**
 * Fern leaves**

Because ferns don't have flowers, they make new ferns from spores. Spores are found in round **sori** or fruitdots on the back of their leaves. Different ferns have different patterns of fruitdots. Make a collection! ||


 * [[image:smile.jpg width="98" height="98"]] || == A Leafy Smile: Can you find the answers? ==


 * 1) The word for the tiny "holes" or "mouths" in leaves?
 * 2) What do the guard cells do?
 * 3) What 3 things make a leafy lunch?
 * 4) The part of a leaf that shuts the plant down for the winter?
 * 5) The different colours in leaves are made by p..........
 * 6) Why do ferns have spores? ||


 * [[image:P1090960.JPG width="280" height="203"]] || ==The Tail of a Crayfish....==

Keannu brought this stunning Red Crayfish tail into the Allen Centre.

Click here to discover more.....
||