Chapter 3: What plants need

By the end of this chapter you will be able to

• Name the five things a plant needs: air, light, water, nutrients from the soil and room to grow
• Say what leaves use light and air for, and why a plant in the dark grows weakly
• Say that roots take in water and nutrients from the soil, and that nutrients are not food
• Explain why crowded plants may grow less well, and how plants differ in what they need
• Describe how water travels up the stem through tiny tubes, and use a table to measure its movement
• Plan and read a fair test on what a plant needs, and show the results in a table and a bar chart

You should already know

• Plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow (Year 2 Science, Chapter 6)
• Parts of a flowering plant: roots, stem, leaves and flower (Year 3 Science, Chapter 2)

Where this leads

• The life cycle of a flowering plant, including pollination and seed dispersal (Year 3 Science, Chapter 4)
• Fair tests and measuring with a ruler (Year 3 Science, Chapter 1)