Designing Life Cycle Displays for the Apartment Lobby

A Science Display on a Busy Avenue

Buses rumble past an apartment building on a busy city avenue. Inside, residents are planning a science display for the lobby window. Anika gathers a grower's pea records and time-ordered photographs of pigeons and houseflies. The display should show how each kind changes during its life and how new generations begin.

The display uses four process labels. Birth marks the beginning of a young living thing's life; the models use hatching or seed sprouting for this label. Growth includes getting bigger and developing body parts. Reproduction means producing offspring, or new young. Death means an individual's life has ended. A model's arrows should explain how these events connect.

Pigeon photographs: A chick hatches from an egg. It is small and has little covering on its body. As it grows, feathers develop. The young pigeon becomes an adult. Adult pigeons can reproduce and produce eggs. A chick does not pass through a pupa stage.

Housefly photographs: A tiny, legless young fly called a maggot hatches from an egg. The maggot grows larger, then becomes a pupa inside a covering. Later, a winged adult housefly comes out. Adult houseflies can reproduce and produce eggs.

Pea records: A seed sprouts. The seedling develops more leaves and a taller stem. Later, the mature plant develops flowers and then pods containing new seeds. Some of these seeds sprout into new plants.

The records follow several generations. They include individuals that died. They also show living adults beside their growing offspring. Each individual eventually dies, but producing offspring does not mean its life ends immediately.