This week 4C explored the question “How do trees travel?” They did this first by looking at the sycamore tree and especially at its specialist seeds called Samaras.

Sycamore seeds (Samaras)

After carefully studying some Samaras we drew some pictures to try and capture the essential parts of the seeds and their wings.

We next made our own helicopter seeds out of paper. We tested these indoors and compared their flight with the flight of Samaras.

We then took both of them outside to investigate the effect of the wind on their flight.

We discovered that both the seed and the paper helicopter were caught by the wind and traveled a considerable distance, many times further than our height. Our conclusion to our original question was that trees do travel, some of them by means of the wind. However, the rate of travel would be very slow because, even though a seed might be carried quite a distance by the wind, a seed would take many years to grow into a mature tree and produce more seeds which could then take their next step on their travels.