Lesson CXXX

The Dodder

Leading thought—There are some plants which not only depend upon other plants to hold them up, but they suck the life-juice from these plants and thus they steal their living.

Method—Bring in dodder with the host plant for the pupils to study in the schoolroom, and ask them to observe afterwards the deadly work of this parasite in the field.

Observations—1. What is the color of the stem? In which direction does it wind?

2. How is the stem fastened to the host plant? Tear off these suckers and examine the place where they were attached with a lens, and note if they enter into the stem of the host plant.

3. How does the dodder get hold of its victim? Has the dodder any leaves of its own? How can it get along and grow without leaves?

4. How do the flowers look through a lens? Are there many flowers? Can you see the petal lobes and the stamens?

5. How many seeds does each flower develop? How do the seeds look? In what way are they a danger to our agriculture?

I should also avoid the information method. It does a child little good merely to tell him matters of fact. The facts are not central to him and he must retain them by a process of sheer memory; and in order that the teacher may know whether he remembers, the recitation is employed,—re-cite, to tell over again. The educational processes of my younger days were mostly of this order,—the book or the teacher told, I re-told, but the results were always modified by an unpredictable coefficient of evaporation. Good teachers now question the child to discover what he has found out or what he feels, or to suggest what further steps may be taken, and not to mark him on what he remembers. In other words, the present-day process is to set the pupil independently at work, whether he is young or old, and the information-leaflet or lesson does not do this. Of course, it is necessary to give some information, but chiefly for the purpose of putting the pupil in the way of acquiring for himself and to answer his natural inquiries; but information-giving about nature subjects is not nature-study.—L. H. Bailey in “The Outlook to Nature.”