home

=Shorecrest Second Grade Science Tulip Garden=

[|Journey North Tulip Garden News]

The tulip garden project allows students to watch as spring arrives and travels north. Each participating school plants a garden of Emperor Tulips the week of November 19th at six to eight inches deep and six inches apart. After the garden is planted students make weather and climate observations and share them with students across North America. We have already received requests for the data we gathered on soil temperature from students in North Carolina. On the [|map] there are codes for planted gardens, emerging gardens and blooming gardens. We will be watching our garden closely for these changes, looking at when the rest of the gardens start to go through these changes, and noting what kind of weather they are having.

**News From Shorecrest's Garden**
__03/5/08 __ We think we have figured out why some of our bulbs have not come up. Coco dug her bulb up and we dissected it. Check this week's observations for a closer picture of the inside. We found rotten tissue and even worms inside. Take a look at another week's observations, thoughts and questions. There are even diagrams from some of the second graders. They were very scientific this week, making exact and specific observations.

__02/28/08__ We received news about the Bulbs in Alaska today. Check out the questions we asked and the responses we have received. It's been 22 days since our first tulip emerged, but none are blooming yet. Other schools report 12-14 days from emergence to blooming. I wonder what is taking ours so long.

__02/27/08__ This week we observed our tulips and found 66 of them have emerged. It seems 20 cm is about as tall as they tulips are getting at this point. We took a look at gardens across North America on the map and found some patterns in the emerging tulips. They are emerging first along the coastline. Students thought this was because there is more rain along the coast and the water stabalizes the temperature keeping it a little warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than inland gardens. We also wrote questions to other classes asking them about their gardens. Here are this week's observations, thoughts and questions. __02/06/08__ Our tulips are growing pretty quickly. All of a sudden it looks like there is something in our garden! Our tallest tulip is 20 cm. We are still watching as more emerge each day. I wonder if our garden will be the first to bloom.

__01/22/08__ The tulips emerged last night. Mrs. Baralt's watchful eye confirmed they were not there on Monday. They officially took 12 days of growing in the soil to emerge. Ten of the 100 tulips have emerged. Why do you think they don't all emerge at the same time? Why do you think they emerged when they did?

Ours were planted in the early January. Others were planted in November. - K.K.

Not all the tulips have sprouted. - Ben

Some tulips have little green sprouts coming up from the wet soil. - Melanie

It has been very sunny, windy and rainy. - Millie

The weather has pretty much been rainy and a little windy in the last couple days. - Elizabeth

I think our garden wasn't the first to emerge because we grew the tulips in January and the others grew the tulips in November. - Elia

__01/16/2008__ The tulips have not yet emerged from the soil. Maybe because we have not had enough rain, or because they have not had enough time to grow underground yet. A cold front moved in over the weekend so we are having colder than usual temperatures but the tulips can still emerge with temperatures in the 60's.

Something to Think About A class in Charlotte, North Carolina reported their soil temperature with us as 40 degrees Fahrenheit this week. Last week it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Compare that to our soil temperature which was 83 degrees Fahrenheit last week and 63 degrees Fahrenheit this week. It seems to be a lot colder in North Carolina. Can anyone find North Carolina on a map? Can you find the city of Charlotte? How many miles North of St. Petersburg, FL is it?

__01/9/2008__ Shorecrest's Second Grade Scientists brought their tulip bulbs out of dormancy (the fridge) and planted them in two garden beds. The temperature outside was 85˚ Fahrenheit and the soil temperature was 83˚ Fahrenheit. Many students predict we will be the second garden to emerge. Observations

"My tulip has a big bruise and it is starting to sprout. It has some cracks. I think my tulip is almost the biggest [in the class.]" -John Curtis

"My tulip bulb is red and tan. Some parts of my bulb have skin on them and some don't." -Caya

"Where I planted my bulb it was very dry. It was also very hard to dig through the soil. I found spiders and weeds. It was very hot. The soil was 85 degrees Fahrenheit. It was not shade, but it would be at a different time of day." - Sammy

__11/14/2007__ We are in Florida Zone 9 so we "planted" our bulbs in a special science fridge kept at 40˚ Fahrenheit. We are waiting for the first week in January to plant our bulbs for real. They need to go through a winter so they know it's time to grow. We don't have a real winter in Florida so the fridge will hopefully do the job.