Let's plant some corn and then “watch the show” as the embryos develop. You will be making daily observations of the progress and recording it in your lab book. Let’s begin by learning a little bit about what to expect. The following activity will introduce you to the first few weeks in a corn plant’s life and give you some events to watch for as your little embryos grow. All responses should be made in your lab book.

1. Go to the following website and read about early corn development.
   http://www.wyffels.com/pages/early_corn_development.htm

2. After reading the section titled, "Germination Requirements," list two conditions that must be met for a seed to germinate.

3. Read "Seedling development," and make a chronological list of events in the growth of the seedling that you should expect to see during a one week time period.

4. Now we will place corn kernels between the sides of a beaker and a paper towel.  You can add a crumpled piece of notebook paper to the inside of the beaker to hold the paper towel in place.  We will keep water in the beaker and the towel will soak up the water providing moisture to the seed, (see the teacher demo).  This will make it easy to watch the process of corn seed germination.
   

5. Check your seed daily to look for changes and make a sketch in your lab spiral.

6. Try to identify each of the events listed above from step three and indicate next to the sketch when a step is identified.

7. Make qualitative observations about color, texture, shape, and anything else you notice about the seedling.

8. Be sure to keep enough water in the beaker so the bottom of the paper towel remains submerged in water.

9. This should be done quickly at the beginning of class and should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Another good site for reference material is:
http://maize.agron.iastate.edu/corngrows.html#how