Growing Carrots from Tops – Simple Science at Home

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The 22nd April is the Annual Earth Day – a day to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s Natural Environment. Working in Conservation for many years as a Field Biologist and Environmental Educator I am so happy that year after year this day is getting more and more recognition.

As J and T are so young I wanted something that would catch their interest as well as teach them a little about the Earth’s Natural Environment and found the inspiration whilst cooking and planting seeds recently. The world comes in cycles and one of the things I love about nature is how new growth can sprout from things that seem to be dead.

We’ve been looking at growing a lot recently – we watched some water bead grow, we’ve grown passengers for our egg carton choo choo train and planted some seeds (the cress is the only one that has grown so far I have my fingers crossed that more will) so this seemed a great way to show growth from something that seemed dead – carrot tops.

What you need to show growth from something that seems dead

The top end of a chopped up carrot
A shallow dish
Water

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How to show growth from something that seems dead

I was preparing our Sunday dinner and had chopped up the carrots I saved the tops and showed J what they were like – he said they were gone and broken, they didn’t look like the carrots we had seen in the super market and as they didn’t have their ends they were broken for him.

Carrot top placed in a shallow dish with water ready to show new growth

I then put a top in the shallow dish and added some water and we took a picture – each day we took them off of the window sill and had a look.

After 2 days we had some shoots appearing

Within a couple of days the top has some small shoots growing out of the top.

1 week of growth

By the end of the week the carrot tops had little leaves.

This is great little experiment to show growth from dead things – one of the things that will appear on the news over the summer will be forest fires – as our climate warms up and becomes drier these unfortunately are becoming increasingly common, but they have always been part of nature’s cycle of life and what has always surprised me is the growth and replenishment of the environment after the fire and how rapid it is.

Come and join up with these amazing blogs for the Earth Day Blog Hop – visit each to see how we are celebrating and learning about Earth Day –

Teach Preschool ~ Ready.Set.Read ~ Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo ~ The Outlaw Mom Blog ~ The Golden Gleam ~ Inspiration Laboratories ~ Nurture Store ~ Experimenting Mom ~ Kids Stuff World ~ Artsy Craftsy Mom ~ Creativity My Passion ~ Imagination Soup ~ Rockabye Butterfly ~ Getting Messy with Miss Jessy ~ Mama Smiles ~ Let’s Lasso the Moon ~ Reading Confetti ~ The Educators’ Spin On It ~ Kitchen Counter Chronicles ~ De tout et de rien ~ The Wise Owl Factory Book a Day ~ Mommy and Me Book Club ~ Dirt and Boogers ~ Carrots Are Orange~ Toddler Approved ~ Imprints from Tricia ~ Smiling like Sunshine

Cerys Parker

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Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, high school teacher and mum. Realising that life doesn't have to be put on hold and you don't just have to survive whilst the kids are young she shares ideas to inspire you to LIVE with the kids, with activities to do together, recipes to cook and enjoy and family travel to make memories to last a lifetime.

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