The Story of the Seed

Flowering plants like our broccoli reproduce in a very sophisticated way. This system has been very effective, as flowering plants make up the majority of species and are in most of the terrestrial world. The way sexual plant reproduction works is based around the stamen (image 3) and the carpel (image 4) of the plant. The stamen is the male part of the plant, and the carpel, also sometimes called the pistil, is the female part. The stamen consists of the filaments and the anthers. The anthers are the semi-triangular shape on the end of the filament, which is like a tiny stem. The "cone" of the anther is where all the gametophytes (pollen) comes from. The carpel is the female part of the plant. It is made of 3 main parts the stigma, on the tip, the ovary, at the base, which holds the ovules, and the style, connecting the ovary and stigma. The process works because animals, insects, and the wind carry the pollen to the stigma, from the anthers. The pollen sticks to...

Our broccoli plant has gotten bigger and bigger each time we check on it. This means it is increasing its biomass. For a plant to get bigger, it needs to go through photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a process in which sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water are taken into a plant to produce glucose (and oxygen as a byproduct). Glucose is a simple sugar which is also a carbohydrate. Photosynthesis produces NADPH (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate in the first part of the process (light independent reactions) to give energy to run the second part (Calvin Cycle), while cellular respiration produces ATP (Adenosine triphosphate). NADPH and ATP both provide energy for the cell to replicate in cell division. This is a process in which the cells of the plant reproduce, creating two cells instead of one. Cell division happens over and over, creating more biomass. Phosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) are both important enzymes for the ...

Our broccoli plant is growing speedily! It is clearly adding biomass everyday, seeing as it has transformed before our eyes from a seedling into a large plant with many leaves and flowers that will soon become the broccoli we know and love (or hate) to eat. The processes of cell division, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration are what work together inside our plant to allow it to grow. Cell division, also known as mitosis, is pretty much how our plant adds to its total mass. Mitosis is a process undergone in eukaryotic cells that results in two daughter cells being produced from a single parent cell, with each of them having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus. Through the stages of interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase/cytokinesis, a cell duplicates everything inside it, the chromosomes line up along a central axis and are pulled apart, and eventually splits down the middle into two new cells. Mitosis happens over and over and adds new...

Our plant is growing rapidly! At first it started as a seed, and now it is a large broccoli plant with many leaves and flowers. The rapid addition of biomass is due to three main processes: mitosis, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration. Mitosis, or cell division, occurs constantly in plants. During this process, a single cell is split into two identical cells. This process occurs and over, at an exponential rate. This is why our plant looks so much bigger. But the cells could not be going through mitosis if it weren't for photosynthesis and cellular respiration. These two processes provide energy (ATP and NADPH) and food (glucose) for the plant's cells, so they are able to undergo processes like mitosis. Without this, our plant would not be alive. In photosynthesis, many different enzymes are used. Two important enzymes are p hosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts to speed up...

All of the plants in the garden are growing really well. Our broccoli plant has gotten way bigger than it was before and this is thanks to cellular respiration, photosynthesis and cell division. During cellular respiration a glucose molecule is being broken into CO2 and water. All the reactions that occur during this process help make ATP. This molecule has bonds that break and release energy for the cell. Photosynthesis uses the energy from ATP, as well as making more, to convert sunlight into glucose for food. The whole concept of growing means getting bigger, though, and cell division is how this happens. Obviously, the plant needs energy from the processes mentioned before to make this happen, but cell division actively makes it bigger. During cell division, a cell goes through 7 phases: interphase, prophase, prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and cytokinesis. In short, the cell duplicates everything in it, pulls apart the chromosomes, gets everything on two sides, and s...