"We're learning how to dissect a flower, and the insides of it and all the parts of it," said 10-year-old Shivani Chadha. "This is my first time. I think it's really cool that we can see the pollen and how a flower lives. I'll learn more about how they grow, and I think it's a really good experience for me because I can help my dad around the garden at home."

Fifth-graders in Jackie Baer's classroom at Argonaut Elementary School had the opportunity to dissect the unusual project in December, thanks to volunteer Kala Padmanabhan, who taught the lesson.

"I hope that every child will go home and try to recreate [the experiment] with a flower in their yard, and basically provide an understanding of what the role of a flower is," she said.

Padmanabhan works at San José State University as a lecturer in chemistry. She is also an outreach educator with the Santa Clara County Biotechnology Education Partnership, which strives to improve science education for high-school and middle-school students in the Bay Area. The program provides access to exciting hands-on biotechnology curriculum and supporting laboratory equipment.

When Padmanabhan's older daughter attended Carden El Encanto School, a private elementary school in Santa Clara, she started conducting experiments in her daughter's fifth-grade class. There was so much interest in Padmanabhan's lessons that she expanded them to fourth and sixth grades as well. When her family moved into the Saratoga Union School District last year, Padmanabhan said she wanted to continue the program in the local schools, even though she doesn't have any children in Baer's class. She's also hoping to help students at Argonaut with ideas for an upcoming science fair and other related science projects.

For the lily dissection project, Padmanabhan gave pairs of students lily flowers, foam trays, dissection kits and all the materials they'd need to conduct the experiment. The students identified the different parts of their flowering plants, drew pictures of them and used large magnifying glasses to study their specimens.

"Some of your petals already have pollen grains on them so don't touch your clothes or you'll get the pollen on your clothes," Padmanabhan warned.

The students removed the stamens, and examined the pollen grains. They slit open the stigma, or female part of the flower, to see an ovary with eggs inside their flowers. Fifth-grader Christopher Hulme said although his class had previously dissected butter beans and corn kernels, the flowers were something new.

"I've never seen this before," said Argonaut Principal Sue Brooks, observing the lesson. "It's engaging to the kids. It's hands-on, and it's so much better than a drawing. It's tricky to do, too."

Lab partners Benjamin Chung and Antong Liu, both 10, got a kick out of the eggs inside the flower.

"We get to dissect it and look at the insides," Benjamin said, giggling.

"It's a completely different point of view," said Antong, trying to keep a straight face. "We get to actually experiment with dissecting. We don't get to handle these really cool instruments normally."

Jean Poo, a Saratoga parent volunteer assisting with the project, said her daughter Stephanie is more of a visual learner, so being able to touch and feel the flower made more of an impact than reading about it in a book.

"The pollen is sticky," said Benjamin, getting it all over his hands.

Baer said overall it was a treat to have someone so professional come in to teach her 31 students.

"It's all hands on, so anything that hands-on helps them learn the concepts better," Baer said.

Baer added the experiment might lead some of her students toward a career in math or science.

"It's a good exploration to peak their interest level. I think it's challenging," she said.