Plant Reproduction
Primary 6 · Science and Elementary Technology
Plant Reproduction
Lesson 5 of 5
20 min
Let's begin
At umuganda, Ishimwe's village plants young trees on the hillside above the river. Back at school, his class looks after a garden of beans, dodo (amaranth) and carrots. "Why do we work so hard to help plants grow and make new plants?" asks Ishimwe. Let us find out why plant reproduction matters for plants, for people and for Rwanda.
Plants grow old and die. If they did not reproduce, each kind of plant would die out (become extinct). Reproduction also spreads plants to new places through seeds, suckers and cuttings.
Scientists use the words carefully. A fruit is the ripened ovary of a flower and holds seeds, so a tomato is a fruit. A vegetable comes from other parts of a plant: leaves (cabbage), roots (carrots) or stems (Irish potatoes).
Many medicines come from plants. Plants give us timber for building, firewood, fibres for mats and baskets, and pyrethrum flowers, which are used to make insect sprays. Tea and coffee, two of Rwanda's most important exports, earn money for thousands of farming families.
New trees and plants hold the soil in place with their roots, give shade, give homes to birds and insects, and release oxygen for people and animals to breathe.
Many food crops only give fruit and seeds if they are pollinated. If bees, butterflies and other pollinators disappeared, farmers would harvest much less, and food would become scarce. That is why we must protect pollinators: do not spray insect poison carelessly on flowering plants, and keep flowering plants and trees around homes and schools.
Tip
More plants mean more of the 5 Fs: Food, Fruit, Fodder, Firewood and Forests.
Answers
What you learned today
Sources and credits
The exercises (Try it yourself and the practice questions) are written by Ganzaa.
Quick check
Scientists use the words carefully. Which one of these is a fruit?
