Bob Brown
Washington FFA Association
Olympia, WA
Brown currently serves as the Washington FFA Executive Secretary, after retiring from a 30-year career as an agricultural educator. When he was teaching, Brown used a hands-on, creative approach to illustrate the parts of a flower for the visual and tactile learner. His project is extremely low budget, and uses normal classroom supplies, craft materials, and pop bottles.
Using a template, students cut eight petals into one bottle and eight sepals into another. Students color the petals, using their creativity to individualize their flower. Next the bottle with the petals is placed above the one with the sepals. Students then use colored pom-poms, pipe cleaners and colored beads to construct the pistil and stamen. When the project is glued together, students have a visual, three-dimensional representation of a complete flower.
"Students enjoy producing the pop bottle flowers," said Brown. "It allows the instructor to discuss the complete, incomplete, perfect and imperfect flowers in sessions about plant reproduction."
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