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INTRODUCTORY TEXT TO THE LESSON The Glenstal Abbey Estate is a demesne about thirty minutes away from Limerick City. The boarding school at the heart of the Estate was once home to wealthy landowners, the Barringtons. It is now a Benedictine Monastery as well as a boarding school for boy students.
The students are surrounded by landscaped grounds as well as a working farm.
In this lesson they look at flowers and how they function as the reproductive organs of plants.
They also show the importance of bees for transferring pollen from one flower to another.
This process - pollination - transfers the male gamete to the female part of the plant. Fertilised ovules become seeds and these are protected by fruits.
The students start to appreciate the concept of a life cycle.
When the seeds are dispersed, in the correct conditions, they germinate to produce new plants that go on to flower and reproduce.