Meiosis and mitosis, what’s the difference?

We’ve recently finished a science unit, all about reproduction. We learned about the different ways organisms reproduce, and how we can also clone plants. We cloned both dandelions and potatoes. Our potatoes grew so well, however, our dandelions did not work out so well. We did not have any successful sprouts with our dandelions. Now you’re probably wondering, how did our unit lead up to this project? Well, let me show you step by step our process to the final product. 

First, we started out by learning about how humans reproduce. We watched a video called Life’s Greatest Miracle. It showed how humans reproduce, and how a small cell turns into a full baby. 

After we got that out of the way, it was time to learn the science behind life. We learned that there are two wats if reproducing, either asexually or sexually. When producing asexually, you use s process called meiosis, and when producing sexually, you are using a process called mitosis. 

Although humans can only reproduce sexually, plants can reproduce either sexually or asexually. Usually, in the wild, plants reproduce sexually, relying on other organisms to help. For example, flowers reproduce using pollen that bees carry from one plant to the other. Plants rely on other species of plants and animals to help them survive, and is far, it’s been working out extremely well. However, when people grow plants, they usually use asexual reproduction, better known as cloning. 

Cloning is what we used with our dandelions and potatoes. To clone out dandelions, we dug uk some perfect ones from the ground, making sure to dig the roots up with it. Afterwards, we cut the roots off the plant, and cut up the roots into about 2 inch pieces. 

 

We then planted them in soil, making sure we planted the upright, so that they don’t grow downwards. For our potatoes, it was a different process. Because potatoes have ‘eyes’, we cut up the potato into squares. The eyes are where the roots will grow out of, so we made sure that each piece we cut had an eye on it. We planted the cubes of potato in soil as well, making sure that the eyes were facing upwards. 

We watered our plants for 2 weeks, and, as I mentioned, our dandelions did not grow. However, our potatoes grew so well!

 

Now, it was time to start our video. My group, Melika, Kiefer, and I, created a research proposal video. Melika and I wrote our script, and in the script, we explained the process of meiosis and mitosis, how asexual and sexual reproduction have pros and cons, and how much money we need to raise. The purpose of this video is to try to raise money to help us clone some more plants. Obviously, this video is nit real, and we aren’t actually raising money, but the idea is to research all the materials we need if we were going to breed more plants. Melika and I also did all of the filming, and editing. We made sure to make our video as informational as possible. Melika and I worked very hard on making this video as excellent as possible. Here is our final video!

This project has been so fun and educational, and reproduction is so much more complex than I thought it was.