We are studying Botany this year in Science. I just have to share this fun experiment because, honestly, everyone would like it. :)
To teach my students how pollination works, I had them pretend they were bees. Bees need nectar that plants produce. To get to the nectar, the bees shove their faces into the flower and consequently pick up a lot of pollen on their hairy body. Then they go to the next flower (of the same type...did you know God made bees go to the same type of flower each day? That's God's way of helping flowers to pollinate. Hmm....) In the new flower the pollen from the last flower gets on the carpel and pollinates that flower while at the same time, the bee picks up pollen from the new flower. And on, and on it goes.
(Side note: Plants don't need nectar but they know bees will come if they produce it. Since plants need bees to come pick up pollen, they spend a lot of energy to produce nectar that they don't use. On the flip side, bees don't use pollen for much, but they do need nectar. That's a co-dependent relationship. God is creative!)
Back to the fun experiment. To help my students fully grasp this transfer of pollen, I had them pretend to be bees. They had them dig their faces into (er... take a bite out of) a powdered sugar donut...without using hands. In the process, they got powder all over their faces. Then they had to dig their faces into (er... take a bite out of) a chocolate donut. And wouldnt' you know...the chocolate donut ended up with lots of white powdered sugar on it. That transfer of sugar is how pollination works.
My students declared this to be the "best science experiment EVER!" While I'd love to take credit for it, I actually got the idea from our curriculum...Apologia Botany. You can't beat Apologia. It's the best!