Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXXII · Unit 7: Plants
32. Useful plants: cotton, flax, tobacco and sugar
Goal: Your child knows that cotton and linen cloth come from plants, and that sugar comes from sugar-cane and from maple sap.
You'll need
- A cotton ball, a cotton T-shirt or towel, and a linen napkin or cloth if you have one
- A little sugar and maple syrup to taste
- A magnifying glass
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Cotton grows in a pod or boll that bursts open; the cotton-gin separates it from its seed, and it is spun into thread and woven into cloth; cottonseed oil comes from the seeds. Linen comes from the fibers in the stalk of the flax plant, and linseed oil from its seeds. Tobacco is named as a plant that gives no food or clothing. Sugar is made from sugar-cane and from the sap of the sugar-maple.
The lesson, step by step
What are your clothes made of?
Read the first question.
What plant supplies us with much of our clothing?
Look at the labels in a few pieces of clothing. How many say cotton?
Pull a cotton ball
Gently pull a cotton ball apart and look at the fibers with the magnifying glass. Twist a few fibers between your fingers to make a short thread, the way spinning begins.
The cotton field
Read about the cotton field and the cotton-gin.
Ask: What is the cotton-gin for? (to separate the cotton from its seeds) What is made from the seeds?
Flax and linen
Read about flax.
Linen comes from the flax plant.
SayCotton grows in a pod. Linen comes from long fibers inside the stalk of the flax plant.
Compare a linen cloth and a cotton one if you have both.
Tobacco
Read the part about tobacco and ask the book's question: Is it as useful as cotton and flax?
What we know now: tobacco smoke is very harmful to health, and it is no longer thought of as a useful plant in the same way.
Sugar
Read about sugar-cane and the sugar-maple. Taste a little sugar and a little maple syrup.
SayMaple syrup is sap from a maple tree, boiled for a long time until it is thick and sweet.
Write
The book says:
Write what you have learned of cotton and linen.
Your child writes two or three sentences about each.
Afterwards
In late winter, look for maple trees being tapped, or a maple sugaring day at a nature center.
Answers to the book's problems
Cotton supplies much of our clothing: shirts, dresses, socks, sheets and towels. The cotton-gin separates the cotton from its seeds. The seeds give cottonseed oil, used in cooking and for making soap. Linen comes from the fibers in the stalk of the flax plant; its seeds give linseed oil, used in paints and varnish and for oiling wood. People in hot countries need light, thin clothing; people in cold countries need warm clothing such as wool and fur, which would be too hot in a hot country. Tobacco gives no food or clothing and is harmful to health, so it is not useful as cotton and flax are. Sugar is made by pressing the juice from sugar-cane and boiling it, and by boiling the sap of the sugar-maple into syrup and then sugar.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.