Grades 3 to 5 · ages 8 to 11

Seeds that fly

A milkweed seed under its parachute of floss is an engineering solution. Students test the real thing, then design and race their own.

What students will be able to do

Explain why being carried on the wind is useful to a plant that cannot move.
Design a fair test, controlling drop height and measuring fall time.
Iterate a design based on results.

Materials

Milkweed seed with floss attached, or photographs and video if you have none
Tissue paper, thread, paper clips, tape, scissors
Stopwatches and a measuring tape
A fan, if you have one

How it runs

Drop a real milkweed seed from head height and time it. Then drop one with the floss pulled off. Time that too.
Ask what the floss is doing, and what it costs the plant to make it.
Challenge: build a parachute that carries one paper clip and stays in the air as long as possible from a fixed height.
Agree the fair-test rules as a class before anyone builds: same height, same payload, three drops each, take the average.
Test, record, redesign once, test again. The second round is where the learning happens.
Finish with the fan on, to see whose design travels furthest rather than falls slowest. They are different problems.

Discussion questions

Why does a plant want its seeds to land far away rather than nearby?
One milkweed pod holds around 200 seeds. Almost none of them become plants. Why make so many?
Aquatic milkweed is the only species with no floss at all. It grows in swamps. What might it use instead?

Taking it further

Collect and clean real seed in the fall using the paper bag and coins method, then sow it outdoors in November.

NGSS alignment

Code	Performance expectation
2-LS2-2	Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.
3-5-ETS1-3	Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered.

Cite this page

This page is licensed CC BY 4.0. Quote it, adapt it and reuse it, including commercially, as long as you credit Milkweed USA and link back.

APA Milkweed USA. (2026). Seeds that fly (lesson plan). Retrieved DATE, from https://milkweedusa.com/learn/seeds-that-fly/

MLA "Seeds that fly (lesson plan)." Milkweed USA, 2026, https://milkweedusa.com/learn/seeds-that-fly/. Accessed DATE.

Chicago

Milkweed USA. "Seeds that fly (lesson plan)." Last modified 2026-08-01. Accessed DATE. https://milkweedusa.com/learn/seeds-that-fly/.

BibTeX

@misc{milkweedusa_learnseedsthatfly,
  title  = {Seeds that fly (lesson plan)},
  author = {{Milkweed USA}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://milkweedusa.com/learn/seeds-that-fly/},
  note   = {Accessed DATE}
}