Overview: In this activity, students design and create a flower adapted for pollination by hummingbirds.

Subject Areas: science, visual arts, language arts

Key Concepts: physical adaptations, pollination, competition

Skills: problem solving, creative thinking, teamwork/cooperative learning, artistic expression, oral communication; observation (if real flowers are examined)

Location: indoors

Estimated time: 1 hour+

Materials: fresh flowers with large obvious flower parts, dissecting tools, magnifying lenses or microscopes, chalk and chalk board for planning meeting; real hummingbird flowers or pictures of hummingbird flowers (optional); paper, pencils, and miscellaneous art supplies for creating a flower prototype (e.g., markers, colored pencils, paint, construction paper, poster paper, pipe cleaners, beads, modeling clay, glue, tape)

Preparatory activity: It will be helpful to teach or review the parts of a flower (pistil, stamens, petals, sepals, etc.) One memorable method is to have the students “build” a flower, with classmates posing as various parts and acting out their functions. For example, ask one student to raise her arms to represent the pistil; this student could also chant “Sticky, sticky, sticky” to draw attention to the sticky stigma, which collects pollen at the top of the pistil. A small group of students representing stamens could encircle the pistil and hold their fists in the air to represent the pollen-bearing anthers at the tips of the stamen; these students could chant “Pollen, pollen, pollen” in deep macho-male voices. A larger group of students could encircle the stamens to represent the petals. Facing outward, these students should act very attractive by waving, smiling, and saying welcoming phrases to passing birds, bees, and insects. Finally, a last group of students could represent the sepals attached to the stem, which hold the parts of the flower together. These students can encircle the petals, hold hands, and act and sound as if they are working very hard to hold the flower together.

After acting out the flower parts, students can dissect and explore the parts of real flowers. They can use magnifying lenses or a microscope to examine each flower part in more detail.

Procedure

1. Announce to the class that today they are designers for a product development and marketing company. Because they are so good at their jobs, Mother Nature would like them to do some work for her. She has hired the class to design a new species for her upcoming Spring Plant Kingdom line.

Because of the high demand and buying power of her hummingbird customers, the new species should appeal specifically to hummingbirds. The flower should be fashionable to catch the hummingbirds’ attention and functional to meet their needs. Since hummingbirds pay for the product with pollination, the flower should also be designed to make as much profit as possible. In addition, Mother Nature has one other special concern that needs to be considered in the flower design. Since her store is so large (the Earth), she doesn’t have time to monitor the shoppers very closely and, unfortunately, shoplifting has become a problem. Certain insects have found ways to steal nectar from flowers without paying in full or at all. They simply take the flower nectar and do not pay by pollinating. Therefore, the new flower should be designed to deter and exclude these shoplifters.

2. Conduct a planning meeting. Have students brainstorm what they need to take into account before starting the project. List all aspects of the “customers,” “shoplifters,” and “market appeal” that the flower design needs to address, but not actual ways to address them. The following are possible topics.

Consider the customers and their shopping style and needs:

• Flight: They can hover.
• Size: They are small but most flowers cannot support their weight.
• Color: They are brightly colored.
• Sight: They have good eyesight and see longer wavelengths of light (red) best.
• Beak: They have long narrow beaks with a long tongue inside.
• Smell: They have a poor sense of smell.
• Behavior: They can be territorial and prevent other birds from feeding.
• Nutrition: They need large amounts of nectar, they need water, and they need protein from insects.

Consider the shoplifters:

• Sight: Most insects see shorter wavelengths of light best (blue, violet, ultraviolet); insects are also attracted to the color yellow.
• Mouth: They have shorter tongues than hummers but some have mouthparts that can pierce the base of the flower to steal nectar.
• Smell: They have a strong sense of smell that guides them to flowers.
• Size: They light and often land on flowers they feed from.

Consider ways to maximize profit:

• How to get the hummingbirds to transfer pollen most efficiently and effectively
• How to achieve cross-pollination
• How to attract customers
• How to reward customers
• How to prevent theft
• How to crush the competition (outcompete other flowers)

3. After the brainstorming session, divide the class into teams of designers. To ensure participation and cooperation, teachers sometimes find it helpful to assign specific design roles (e.g., materials specialist, idea note taker, presenter, advertising manager, customer satisfaction specialist, theft-prevention manager) to team members. Each team must present an oral report about its proposed flower to explain its advantages. As part of the report, each team must also present a model or full-color drawing of its flower as a prototype.

4. As teams are developing their ideas, walk around and ask questions to stimulate students’ imaginations and to remind them of factors they are omitting (e.g., how to exclude “shoplifters”).

Wrap-up: Ask each team to present its flower model or drawing and to point out or demonstrate its fashionable and functional features. Each team should explain how its flower will attract hummingbirds, how pollen will be transferred, how hummingbirds will be rewarded, and how nectar will be protected from “shoplifters.” Finally, congratulate the teams on a job well done.

Extension: As part of the activity you may want to study hummingbird-pollinated flowers using either real flowers or pictures (Mother Nature’s current line!). If you are concerned that this might squelch students’ creativity and cause them simply to copy real flowers, you could do it at the end of the activity. If you study actual flowers, note how the stamens on cardinal flower, Indian paintbrushes, and many penstemons are positioned to tap pollen onto the hummingbird’s head. Columbine and many other dangling blooms get pollen all around the base of the bill. Many of the larger trumpet-shaped blooms deposit pollen on the hummingbird’s throat. Other characteristics to note in the real-life flowers are their color (typically red or orange), tubular shape, lack of scent, thickened base, and sideways or downward orientation. Use the chart Characteristics of Flowers Adapted to Pollination by Hummingbirds (below) as a reference.

Characteristics of Flowers Adapted to Pollination by Hummingbirds

Often the petals of hummingbird plants are fused to form a tubular shape. This excludes many insects that do not have tongues long enough to reach the nectar hidden inside.

Most birds do not have a well-developed sense of smell, so many hummingbird-pollinated flowers lack fragrance. Because bees and other insects are guided in part by scent, they are not attracted to these flowers.

Hummingbird flowers often hang away from the plant, leaving space where birds can maneuver. Many also hang pointing down or to the side rather than up; the nectar is less likely to be diluted by rainwater. They are also easy for hummingbirds to hover around but difficult for insects to land on.

Many hummingbird-pollinated flowers have a thickened covering at their bases, or the bases are grouped tightly together in an inflorescence. This prevents bees from piercing the base of the flower to reach the nectar.

The stamens of hummingbird-pollinated flowers are often positioned to deposit pollen efficiently onto a hummingbird’s throat, beak, or head.

Many of these flowers are red. Most insects do not see longer wavelengths of light (red) at all or as well as they see shorter wavelengths of light (blue, violet, ultraviolet). Red may appear as a dark or black color to insects so they are not particularly attracted to it. However, red is easily seen and distinguished from other colors by birds. Note that a garden does not have to be full of red, orange, or pink flowers with the characteristics listed above in order to attract hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are extremely curious and opportunistic birds that will feed from almost any flower with nectar to which they can gain access, no matter what its color, shape, or size.

This activity, written by Kim Bailey, was originally published in Green Teacher magazine (Spring 2002) and is also included in Green Teacher’s book, Teaching Green: The Middle Years.