The Great Sunflower Project

Art by Samantha LeBuhn, Age 10

We love having schools participate. You can either plant your sunflowers in a garden, a large pot or find a nearby community garden to use to sample. Schools provide special opportunities because they can sample every week during the spring and measure the seeds in the fall.

Please register tell us about your school garden using the the garden description form. Be sure to check that it is a public garden which will allow more than one student to enter data. When you enter the name, type School-Name of school (for example, School-Bumblebee High) if your garden is not open to the public.

We'll send you seeds to plant immediately. Email sfbee@sfsu.edu if you think you will need extra seed.

To participate, each student should focus on one flower. Then write down how many minutes it took for each bee to arrive until five bees arrived. Data sheets can be printed out here. And if you would like to identify bees, use our bee guide. Then, enter the data online. For schools, we'd love to have this be a one time per week activity for the spring and, if possible, twice a month in the summer. In the fall, we would love to get counts of the number seeds produced by the flowers on your sunflower. We will make forms for that project available later this spring.

Click here for access to more resources for you to use in your classroom while participating. Do send us anything that you think we should add.