Sometimes we face different phenomena and things and never think WHY and HOW they happen. They are around us every day, and they just have become a part of our routine, thus we don't notice them and don't think of these processes.
Nevertheless, some of them are so interesting and useful to know!
For example, this very experiment helped me to know some news about nature! I am a grown up, but belive me, I never think of it and never knew why it happened.
Do you know why pice cones are open and closed sometimes?
I never thad a thought about it! But unschooling for my son is my second education as well;))
For this experiment we need:
- some pine cones
- a glass
- water
- some hours of waiting
We found some pine cones in my son's room. Actually, there is nothing weird in it, cause he always bring home some stones, cones, sticks etc. It's his own treasures;)
We both didn't know what would happen with a pine cone if it would be put into the water.
And we did it.
At first we made it in the evening, and in the morning we saw.... an absolutely closed pine cone! It looked young and fresh!
I was sure we needed the whole night for the process of closing.
The next try was made in the morning, and....already in 1 hour the pine cone was closed!
It needs just 1 hours to close all its "doors".
We were surprised but happy we saw it.
Then we found the explanation, why it happened:
The thing is a pine cone makes it for saving its seeds! When it's too dry, and it's ready to share seeds and give them away to wind to be blown anywhere, it's opened completely.
When humidity is high, it's closed to save seeds for better times.
How wise our nature is!
We both liked this simple but so useful experiment that gave us more understanding of natural processes.