Investigate a flower's power of marketing by making an imitation flower that successfully signals a bee (or other pollinator of your choice) to visit. Try to determine what characteristics will attract a pollinator to your flower. Also available as an online game.

The study of biomimicry and sustainable design promises great benefits in design applications, offering cost-effective, resourceful, non-polluting avenues for new enterprise. An important final caveat for students to understand is that once copied, species are not expendable. Biomimicry is intended to help people by identifying natural functions from which to pattern human-driven services. Biomimicry was never intended to replace species. Ecosystems remain in critical need of ongoing protection and biodiversity must be preserved for the overall health of the planet. This activity addresses the negative ramifications of species decline. For example, pollinators such as bees are a vital work force in agriculture. They perform an irreplaceable task in ensuring the harvest of most fruit and vegetable crops. In the face of the unexplained colony collapse disorder, we are only now beginning to understand how invaluable these insects are in keeping food costs down and even making the existence of these foods possible for humans.

In this activity, learners learn about the adaptations that flowers have developed which support pollination. Learners also list their personal preferences (i.e. favorite color, food) and a partner will create a "designer flower" to match their preferences. Learners can participate in a Take-Home challenge, in which they will draw a fictional pollinator-plant pair.

This article highlights hands-on or multimedia lesson plans about plant structures, growth and development, seed production, and dispersal. Science lessons are paired with suggested literacy lesson plans. All lessons are aligned to national standards.

In this activity, learners identify the reproductive parts of plants and the animal (bee) structures involved in pollination. Learners then use this information to role play or act out the process of pollination. Use this activity to introduce learners to the importance of pollination partners and how plant and animals interact to accomplish pollination.

This article assembles free resources from the Polar Plants issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.