My name is Jin.

This is my dad’s garden.

Last year, when Dad planted the garden, I mostly played in the dirt.

I noticed the ladybugs and other beetles.

The sunflowers grew taller than I was.

But I wasn’t very tall.

This year, I help Dad plant seeds.

“We’ll plant tomatoes here,” Dad says. “Beans and radishes go there. We’ll put sunflowers over there.”

“But I want to plant the sunflowers under the tree by my bedroom window,” I say. “Then I’ll see them every morning when I wake up.”

“Hmm,” Dad says. “That’s a shady spot. Do you think sunflowers will grow there?”

"I have an idea," I say. “Let’s plant sunflowers in both places! Then we can see what happens.”

“Great idea!” Dad says. “It’s an experiment! Try out your idea and see what happens.”

So we planted sunflower seeds in the shade by my window, and in the sun in the middle of the garden.

By the middle of the summer, all the plants were growing.

There were sunflowers growing in the shade and sunflowers growing in the sun.

I looked at the young sunflowers every day. And I noticed something.

In the early morning, all the sunflowers looked like this.

In the late afternoon, all the sunflowers looked like this.

Sunflowers move!

In the morning, young sunflowers face east, where the sun rises.

In the afternoon, they face west, where the sun sets.

The sunflowers move very slowly all day long.

They turn to face the sun.

At the end of the summer, I compared the sunflowers growing in the shade with the sunflowers in the sun.

"What do you think?" Dad asks. "Did you find out anything from your experiment?"

"I found that sunflowers planted in the sun grow taller than sunflowers planted in the shade," I tell him.

"And I found out that sunflowers move! They turn to face the sun."

"And you found out one more thing," Dad says.

"What's that?" I ask.

"You're good at noticing things!" Dad says. "And you can learn a lot when you experiment."