Coyote Science

Coyote Science Activity 8

Pollen cards
Posted by Hello

Pollen Cards
(It's everyone's business!)

Grains of pollen are unique for each plant and are almost indestructible. Police investigators use pollen to learn about crime scenes and scientists about natural environments, ancient or modern. But they need collections of pollen to compare an unknown sample to.

Here's an easy way to get started with your own collection.

Materials

Old business cards

Roll of clear tape

Garbage bag tie, or string

Tools:

Hole punch

Pencil

Nice to have access to:

Microscope 100 to 200 power maximum

Health food bee pollen

What you want to do:

Punch 2 holes in each of the business cards, one in the center and another in the corner. Try to make them all the same. Now put the tie, or string, through the corner hole of all of the cards so that they are held loosely together like keys on a key ring.

When you want to collect some pollen tear off a piece of clear tape and place it over the hole, then dust the exposed sticky side with pollen and cover it with another piece of tape. Use the pencil to write down the date, location and name (or description) of the plant you got it from. Later look at the sample with a microscope and draw a picture of it on the card too. There are some more advanced techniques for using the microscope, ask me about them.

A good test of your identification skills would be to get pollen from a health food store then try to identify the type of pollen the bees collected.

References:

Pollen information at: The Department of Ultrastructure Research and Palynology )

posted by Bob C.  # 4:46 AM