If the students are too young to dissect flowers alone, do this activity as a demonstration. Distribute data sheets, flowers, magnifiers, and clear tape to students and let them follow the data sheets as they dissect the flower. Closure Use the transparency How Flowers Reproduce to explain the reproduction process to students. Tell them bees are the best pollinators of flowers. When a bee goes to a flower to get nectar and pollen, some pollen drops off the bee's body onto the sticky stigma on the pistil.
Beekeepers often rent hives to farms with apple orchards or other trees needing to be pollinated.
Other insects which visit flowers also pollinate them. Pollen can also be transferred to the stigma by wind and by some birds and bats. Explain that fruits and vegetables are really swollen ovaries of a blossom that grew on the plant. Show students an apple and point out the leftover blossom and stem on opposite ends. Cut the apple open to expose the seeds formed inside the ovary.