How an Orange Tree Makes New Trees

How an Orange Tree Makes New Trees: Grade 4 Science Worksheet

Where do new orange trees come from? Students follow an orange tree, home of Florida’s state flower, through the four steps flowering plants use to make new plants: pollination, fertilization, seed dispersal, and germination. They match picture cards of a bee, seeds inside an orange, fruit carried away, and a sprouting seed to each step.

Key Science Vocabulary

• pollination: moving pollen from flower to flower, often by bees
• fertilization: when the flower makes seeds
• seed dispersal: seeds being carried away to new places
• germination: a seed sprouting into a new plant
• flowering plant: a plant that makes seeds inside fruit

What Students Do

• Read a short teach box with the four steps numbered in order
• Part A: four large picture cards; circle the step each card shows
• Part B: which step comes first, and why seed dispersal helps
• Answer key with a teacher note

Standards

Florida SC.4.L.16.1: Identify processes of sexual reproduction in flowering plants, including pollination, fertilization (seed production), seed dispersal, and germination. Aligns with NGSS 4-LS1-1 (plant structures that support reproduction).

Where It Fits in Grades 3 to 8

In grade 3, students learn the parts of a plant and its life cycle. Grade 4 names the four steps of flowering plant reproduction. In middle school, this leads to how plants and animals work together to reproduce and how traits pass to the next generation.

Teaching Tip

Cut open an orange and count the seeds, then ask how a seed could get far from the tree. The answers set up seed dispersal before students start Part A. Prints clearly in black and white and takes 8 to 10 minutes.