Family Learning Moments—Discovering Fall at the Museum

Honeylocust tree

I found these spiral shaped seed pods on the
honeylocust trees by the museum’s bus stop.
What a great conversation piece about shape.
If you look closely you can see individual seeds
inside the pods.  

Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn

Some more berries! There are a number of
trees that bear fruit in the fall. For older kids,
you can talk about the way animals eat fruit
off of trees to help disperse seeds.

Amur Maple

As a kid, I loved helicopters off the maple trees.
The seed pods are also called samaras.
Watch for falling pods to twirl and spin, hence
their nickname,helicopters.  

Maple (variety "Commemoration")

Without a doubt, fall is such a great time to have
kids point out colors of leaves. There are a row
of trees along our promenade that slowly
changed from green to a bright orange. One
day, I was able to find a tree that still had green
leaves on the bottom branches, but flaming
orange at the top. What a great opportunity to
catch the trees in transition! Here's the bottom
of the tree...

Black Eyed Susans

Trees aren’t the only plants that demonstrate
visible changes. Sometimes, plants look like
they're dead and not much use. If you look
just a bit closer, you can find evidence of the
plant life cycle. The black centers of the flowers
contain the seeds for new plants. It’s easier to
spot the seeds when the flowers have withered.