Concord High School, Concord, New Hampshire

The Crimson Review

Concord High School, Concord, New Hampshire

The Crimson Review

Flower power

Flower+power

Freshmen in Frank Harrison’s Biology class recently dissected daffodils in order to learn about asexual reproduction.

The lab called for students to remove petals from flowers in order to understand how the different parts work together.

“We are dissecting the stamens, isolating the anther, and cutting the anther to locate pollen,” explained Liam Grennon, one of the students in Harrison’s Period 7 section.

Grennon and others worked in pairs to complete the lab using kits  provided by the teacher.

Each kit came complete with tweezers, magnifying glass, razor, scissors, slide and dissector.

Students also studied diagrams with labels including pistil, sepal, nectary and pedicel.

After cutting apart anthers with razor blades, students had to estimate the number of pollen grains and then count ovules in ovary sections.

Paige Annis and Alexi Rivet, shown at left, had a bit of trouble trying to drip water onto the stamen at first.

“We’re trying to get water on the yellow things but it isn’t working,” said Annis (in blue).

The two eventually figured it out.

Jordan Ives is among students who really enjoy labs in Biology, calling the class “pretty awesome.”

Sean Spain, shown at left reading directions while lab partner Dalton Barrett examines the flower they are about to dissect, admits he wasn’t so sure at first.

“At first I didn’t like the lab, but it’s actually pretty cool,” he said.

Students in Harrison’s Biology classes recently had an additional opportunity for fun, traveling by bus to the New England Aquarium in Boston to see the exhibits and watch a 3-D movie on great white sharks in the Simons IMAX Theatre.

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