Field · no grade
Nature and farming
What happens when a seed falls to the ground? Discover how plants make their food with light, how they carry water from their roots to their leaves, why soil is alive, why farmers rotate their crops and where the scent of thyme, lavender and sage comes from, all through Türkiye's climate, fields and hillsides. Set the light, water and temperature yourself, and put the layers of the soil in order with your own hands. No age limit.
Follow these lessons around a question: journeys- 2 units
- 6 lessons
- about 99 min
Photo: Rémi Walle / Unsplash
How do plants live?
A plant has no mouth, no stomach and no heart. Yet it feeds, drinks and grows. Explore photosynthesis, water's journey from root to leaf and the awakening of a dry seed by setting the light, water and temperature with your own hands.
- Photosynthesis and light
Does a huge tree get its mass from the soil or from the air? Explore photosynthesis, from van Helmont's willow experiment to why leaves are green, how light limits growth and why not every plant wants full sun.
- 16 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz
- Water and roots: how does water reach the top of a tree?
How does a plane tree with no pump lift water thirty metres? Follow water's path from root hairs and osmosis to the xylem and transpiration from the leaves, and find out why overwatering drowns roots and how rice survives in a flooded field.
- 16 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz
- From seed to seedling: germination
Dried beans in the pantry sleep for years, yet sprout within days on damp cotton wool. Discover the water, warmth and oxygen that wake a seed, why lettuce seeds won't germinate in the heat, and in which seasons beans and lettuce are sown in Türkiye.
- 15 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz
Soil and fields
The soil under your feet is a living world. Explore the layers of the soil and the invisible crowd living in it, the bacteria that fix nitrogen from the air, the logic of crop rotation, and the science of aromatic plants such as thyme, lavender and sage.
- Soil is alive
A handful of fertile soil is home to billions of bacteria, metres upon metres of fungal threads and countless tiny creatures. Explore soil layers, humus, Darwin's earthworms and mycorrhiza, and find out why 1 cm of topsoil takes hundreds of years to form.
- 17 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz
- Crop rotation and legumes
The air is 78% nitrogen, yet wheat can run short of it. Discover how bacteria in the root nodules of chickpeas and lentils fix nitrogen from the air, how this differs from the Haber–Bosch process, and the logic of crop rotation from Anatolia to Rome.
- 17 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz
- An introduction to medicinal and aromatic plants: thyme, lavender and sage
Touch thyme and its scent clings to your fingers. Where was it hiding? Learn what an essential oil is, how glandular hairs store it, what thymol and linalool are, how steam distillation works and why "natural means harmless" is a myth, along with the safety rules.
- 18 min
- 2 simulations
- Mini quiz