Plant Life Cycle Jeopardy
Seeds, roots, flowers, and fruit: a plant life cycle review for early elementary science. Copy the board for free; kids buzz in from phones or tablets.
6 categories, 30 clues, Final Jeopardy. Everyone buzzes in from their phone.
Hosting opens the presenter screen with a join code for everyone's phones. Either way the board is a copy of your own. Free, no account needed.
Every clue on this board
This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.
Seeds and Sprouting
- $200
A seed needs this liquid to start growing.
What is water?
- $400
This is the name for a young plant that has just sprouted from a seed.
What is a seedling?
- $600
Seeds sprout best when the weather is this, not freezing cold.
What is warm?
- $800
A seed stores this inside to feed the baby plant until it can make its own.
What is food?
- $1,000
This big word names the moment a seed starts to sprout.
What is germination?
Roots and Stems
- $200
Roots hold a plant firmly in this.
What is soil?
- $400
The thick, woody stem of this tallest kind of plant is called a trunk.
What is a tree?
- $600
This hard outer layer protects a tree's trunk.
What is bark?
- $800
Plants like ivy have stems that do this up walls and fences.
What is climb?
- $1,000
A radish or a beet grows one thick main root called this.
What is a taproot?
Leaves
- $200
Most leaves are this color in spring and summer.
What is green?
- $400
Leaves use sunlight, water and air to make food in this process.
What is photosynthesis?
- $600
Leaves take in this gas from the air to make food.
What is carbon dioxide?
- $800
This green material inside leaves catches sunlight.
What is chlorophyll?
- $1,000
These tiny openings on a leaf let air in and out.
What are stomata?
Flowers and Pollinators
- $200
These buzzing insects make honey and visit flowers.
What are bees?
- $400
These colorful parts of a flower attract insects.
What are petals?
- $600
Pollinators drink this sweet liquid from flowers.
What is nectar?
- $800
This tiny bird beats its wings very fast as it sips from flowers.
What is a hummingbird?
- $1,000
After a flower is pollinated, this part at its base grows into a fruit.
What is the ovary?
Fruits and Seeds
- $200
This red fruit wears its seeds on the outside.
What is a strawberry?
- $400
When you blow on the fluffy seed head of this yellow flower, the wind carries its seeds away.
What is a dandelion?
- $600
Squirrels bury these nuts, and some grow into oak trees.
What are acorns?
- $800
Some seeds have tiny hooks that stick to this on animals and get a free ride.
What is fur?
- $1,000
A tomato is really one of these, because it grows from a flower and holds seeds.
What is a fruit?
Plants We Eat
- $200
This orange root is a favorite snack of rabbits.
What is a carrot?
- $400
When we eat asparagus spears, we are eating this part of the plant.
What is the stem?
- $600
When we eat lettuce or spinach, we are eating these parts of the plant.
What are leaves?
- $800
Broccoli is really a bunch of these that have not opened yet.
What are flower buds?
- $1,000
Popcorn pops out of these, which are the seeds of the corn plant.
What are kernels?
Final Jeopardy — Flower Power
Bees and butterflies carry this powdery dust from flower to flower, helping plants make seeds.
What is pollen?
How to run this board
This board follows a plant from start to finish: what is inside a seed, how it germinates, what roots, stems, and leaves each do, why flowers need pollinators, and how fruit carries the next round of seeds. A final column covers the plants students actually eat, which usually starts an argument about whether a tomato is a fruit.
If your class has a bean or sunflower growing on the windowsill, bring it to the front and refer to it during the game. Asking a team to point to the stem or a leaf on a real plant is quicker than any diagram.
Play the columns left to right if you can; they follow the life cycle in order, which makes the board double as a recap of the unit.
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Spotted a clue that's wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll fix the board. Or start from a blank board and write your own.