As we look at the evolution and importance of plants this week, let’s focus on some flowering plants that took an interesting step back into the water. Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) includes aquatic grasses- these are plants that grow almost completely in water (one genus produces flowers above the water- the rest have underwater flowers pollinated by water movement!) even though ancestral flowering plants evolved on land.

For New Hampshire’s April school vacation week, when none of us is actually going anywhere, we decided to focus on things we could do if we did have some sort of wild vacation adventure and ended up on a deserted island- how could we problem-solve our way through being stranded and get back home again?

We’ll start by making a compass from materials we (hopefully) have lying around so that we can find north and the other cardinal directions- this is a pretty quick activity that touches on our magnetic field and the Earth’s core.