The Greatest Botanist on Mars or in Room 32 at Least

This weekend I saw The Martian. My whole family enjoyed it. My boys are 8 and 10 and they found it interesting and exciting. It comes with a PG-13 or från 11 rating for some language and one pretty graphic scene of a wound but the overall message and spirit of the film was family friendly in my opinion. It is about an astronaut who gets stuck on Mars. In one scene he decides to grow potatoes. In addition to claiming that he is the best botanist on Mars, he claims that, “Mars will come to fear my botany powers!”

We might be starting on a much smaller scale trying to germinate seeds in grade 5 but every botanist starts somewhere. Grade 5 students are germinating seeds in petri dishes. They have chosen their conditions for growing. Of course they have only changed one factor in order to make a fair test. 

Some of the varying conditions are: growing in soap, growing in tea or coffee, growing in different colors among others. Who knows, maybe one of these kids will be the best botanist on Mars  one day.