Animals, Plants & Seasons 3-minute video · ages 4-8 · free coloring page
What is corn silk for?
Peel open some corn, and look! Soft, shiny threads! What is all that corn silk for?
3 min
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Free coloring page
The scene from the video as a coloring page, plus the three-sentence answer, the experiment, and a QR code back to this page. One sheet, US Letter, black and white.
The answer in three parts
Why?
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The tassel makes pollen.
At the very top of the corn plant is a spiky, feathery part called the tassel. It makes pollen, a fine yellow dust. When the wind blows, the pollen floats off and drifts down through the air.
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Each silk is a catcher's mitt.
Out of the top of the baby ear comes the silk, like a fluffy little ponytail. Each silk thread waits for a grain of pollen.
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One silk, one kernel!
Each silk thread is connected to one spot inside the ear, where one kernel can grow. When a grain of pollen lands on it, it sends a tiny tube all the way down the silk, and the kernel knows it's time to grow!
For grown-ups: If a silk thread never catches any pollen, its kernel never grows. That's why you sometimes see an ear of corn with a few empty spots, like a smile with missing teeth.
A tiny experiment
Try it!
Count the rows
You need: corn on the cob
- Next time you have corn on the cob, count the rows all the way around.
- Is it an even number?
- If you get to peel one, look at how many silk threads there are!
What happened? Almost every ear of corn has an even number of rows, like fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen!
Did you know?
There can be more than five hundred kernels on one ear of corn. So there were more than five hundred silk threads too, each one catching its own little grain of pollen!
There are lots of kinds of corn. Sweet corn for eating off the cob, field corn for animals and cornmeal, and popcorn!
Your guide in this video
I'm Poppy, the popcorn kernel. In the fall, farmers harvest the corn when it's ready.
Poppy is golden yellow with a hard shiny shell. Droppy the water drop hides inside!
Keep asking
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