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March 30, 2009 | 4:50 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
Thank you for all your efforts! Your graphs look great, and I really liked your experiment. Of course you would do it differently in the future, but that is part of doing experiments. You finetune them as you go along, and learn from your results. You have been a great team! If I was your teacher I would definitely give you an A+ on your project, and your efforts has really shown that you have been thinking about this and you did great work in presenting your results, data, and experimental design. Good luck in all future things! |
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March 30, 2009 | 12:42 AM |
Good bye Thank you everyone who participated in this inquiry! We hope you are going away with some new insights about how science works, and confidence that you can take on new scientific challenges. There are a lot of fascinating research questions---just waiting for young investigators to join in the fun. Best wishes for the remainder of your school year! Jennifer |
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March 27, 2009 | 4:25 AM |
theartslover
(Team Member)
Thanks! Thank you so much for the time you have spent monitoring and giving advice on our experiment. I learned a lot from your comments and will be sure tot ake the advice and the things I have learned into account in further experiments. Thanks for supporting our project and being such a great mentor. |
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March 27, 2009 | 4:23 AM |
Meagan
(Team Member)
Graphs! Hi Lena, Here's our graphs..finally! :) Thank you so much for all of your time and and great comments. Your suffestions were really helpful. I hope ou enjoyed our experiment! Meagan |
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March 27, 2009 | 4:00 AM |
Viktoria
(Team Member)
Thank you! Thanks so much for working with our group on this project. I really learned a lot by conducting this experiment. We all apreciate the time and instruction you have contributed to guiding us through the project. You have been a great mentor! |
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March 27, 2009 | 3:58 AM |
Abby
(Team Member)
Thank you! Thankyou so much for helping us and giving us feedback on our project. We really appreciated it. You gave us some great ideas and tips that helped alot! ---Thanks again, -----Abby |
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March 26, 2009 | 6:52 AM |
Meagan
(Team Member)
Seed results Lena, Thank you for all of your help! We will be making a few graphs with our seed results. Hopefully we can have that uploaded very soon. Be looking for it, we can't wait for your comments :) |
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March 25, 2009 | 1:25 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
project results Hi girls, Great experiment! I have some comments on your results. I don't think the seeds really shrink. Plant cells have rigid walls after the first developmental phase, so they can't change cell size like animals can. Therefore, if the roots are shorter, then it is either due to measurement error or that the root tip died off. I think your experiment shows that too much fertilizer is not a good thing. Have you planned to take your excel sheet with data and present the results in a summary, like a graph or report? That would be good, to show the overall results of your experiment. What do you think you learned from this project? I would be very interested to hear your reflections on doing this science project. All the best, Lena |
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March 24, 2009 | 6:02 AM |
Avery
(Student, the gardeners - WSHS_S09_W14 · -1)
so is the fertilizer helping the plants grow or not really doing anything? |
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March 21, 2009 | 2:07 PM |
akela135
(Student, Planting Pirates - ESU_S09_W01 · 3)
'Sup I wish I would have caught on to your experiemtn earlier, it looks pretty awesome! I'm interested in hearing what your results are. Just ealier today I was thinking about my own experiment, and wondering if I should have used more phosphorus to stress my plants out in the "too much" group. Your experiment follows along with my thinking, only for all fertilizer and not just phosphours. I wonder what point there is "too much" nutrients for a plant. I also wonder why that is. One would think that if you didn't need more nutrients you just wouldn't take them, in the same way I don't eat a whole pizza because that is too much. I suppose it has to do with concentration gradients or something, but my botany knowledge is sadly lacking. Your team seems to be really well organized, your experiment was really easy to follow. You guys have done an execellent job! I'll be eagerly waiting for the results of your experiment. And thanks for commenting on my own team's experiment! -Ashley |
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March 21, 2009 | 4:59 AM |
theartslover
(Team Member)
I uploaded our last data file that we will be taking. Our teach informed us that this was our last time to take data, therefore our experiment is done and we will be recording our results soon. I feel our ecperiment was not properly managed though beacuse our information ont he growth of the plants was so varied. Either the roots did really shrink our we just varied our measurements too much. I would advise further testings of our variable to be more prescise in their measurements and calculations. |
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March 19, 2009 | 7:50 AM |
Joslyn
(Team Member)
Ok, so in these reluslts, when we checked the plants it seemed like some had died. The roots went grey or became clear on the ones I labeled as died on the excel chart. Also, it seems like some of the plants are shrinking becaise some of or data of the length of some of the plant roots from 2 days ago was different, as in greater lengths. Can the roots really shrink or are we just not measuring them effectively? To redo this experiment, we would take more effecient data recordings, and use lesser percentages of the fertilizer. All the seeds now that have 100% fertilizer are not growing. You were right in that there is too much nutrients in their environment to grow. Also, I got the concentrations of the fertilizer. I am not sure what it all means but I am sure you do. The fertilixer consists of 4% Nitrogen, 1.8 % Ammoniacal Nitrogen, 2.2% Urea Nitrogen, and Available Phosphate (P2 05) 12 % If that doesn't make sence I will take a closeup of the bottle and post it as well as a closeup of the plants I think are dying. |
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March 17, 2009 | 8:16 PM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
great photos! Hi Joslyn and everybody else. Those photos are great! So the sunflower seeds are growing now - that is great. Maybe they just have a longer germination time than bean seeds? I think you can find the fertilizer concentration on the back of the bottle, and also check what kinds of nutrients that are included (usually it is N, P, and K elements, but the concentration varies). If you would redo this experiment and make it better, what would you do different? |
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March 17, 2009 | 9:00 AM |
Joslyn
(Team Member)
yea I will be updating the excel graph everyday with more results, so each day there will be another graph filled in on that same file. I will check tommorow at school to see what the fertilizer bottle says. right now im already home from school, so I can't check. In school today, we took lots of pics as well as updating our data, so now u can see what our lab setup looks like. Hope you enjoy and thank you so much for the advice about the fertilizer. I didn't know that the type of fertilizer you use couls make so much impact too. That would be another good experiment to test about the effects of different fertilizer concentrations on different types of seeds in certain environments. It would also be cool to test the impact different types of water like distilled or tap water has on seeds as well as the light source. |
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March 17, 2009 | 5:04 AM |
Keara
(Student, The Islanders - ASB_S09_W10 · -1)
Thanks! Hi! My name is Keara from ASB school. I really like your experimental design. It's really creative! Vicktoria commented on our page about your and our experiment and I gotta say I was surprised to get comments from different schools. Thanks for the comments! I am eager to see how your experiment turns out. I am REALLY curious. I would have never thought of it! |
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March 16, 2009 | 8:42 PM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
Grreat update to your experimental design! Your description of the project is much better and more detailed now, great! About the fertilizer - could you look at the label for the liquid fertilizer bottle and see what it says? It should say something like nitrogen: XX mg/ml. That way you will know how much nitrogen, phosphorus, etc., that you have added to the water. It is also important to know what chemical compounds that you added. Fertilizer comes in many different kinds and many different concentrations (weak or strong colutions). Sometimes it has lots of nitrogen and less phosphorus, other times equal amounts, and this affects different plant species differently. Excel is not easy to learn! I am glad you managed to figure it out! I hope you get some more results so you can make a nice graph of your results in Excel. |
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March 16, 2009 | 6:04 AM |
theartslover
(Team Member)
not sure Ok, im not sure what you mean by fertilizer concentration. Is this what you are looking for? There are 3 different mixtures. one for each bag and there are 3 bags per type of seed so we have 15 different bags with 4 beans in each, except for the 2 ones we forgot on(refer to chart) In the first bag on all of them, we labeled it No fertilizer meaning it has only 10 mL of distilled water in it that is soaking the filter paper. In the second bag on all of them, we have labeled it 50/50 meaning there is 5 mL of distilled water and 5mL of liquid fertilizer in each. In the third bag on each, we labeled it 100% fertilizer meaning there is all 10 mL of liquid fertilizer and no water inside the bag. Besides these two elements, we added no extra nutrients except for what was allready existing in the seeds. Does this answer question? And you are right, the sunflower seeds shows almost no growth, one or two of the seeds have now split, but nothing besides that. And If I am right, we are doing this experiment for two weeks, so hopefully that will be enough time for all of the seeds to germinate. And thanks for the comment on the good layout of results. It definently organized things, even though it took me a while to create n excel cas Im not very good with that particular program. |
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March 16, 2009 | 5:52 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
fertilizer When you say 10 ml fertilizer, what is the concentration? I assume the fertilizer is very concentrated, right? Maybe you can compare the concentration with what is suggested as the optimal concentration for seeds? Lets wait and see, but you might have so much nutrients in there that you inhibit the growth. Now think about that - why would a plant NOT want to grow if it has lots of nutrients around it? Your result sheet is excellent! Nice layout! Red Clover, green beans, peas and alfalfa are all bean plants (family Fabaceae), that grow easily without nutrients because they are packed with nutrients inside (you know, beans are healthy for you, right?). The sunflower seed is also nutritious, but has its nutrients in endosperm, and might take longer to germinate in general. I hope you get some germination in your fertilizer treatments. Maybe you should do this experiment up to 2 weeks in case the sunflower seed is slow. I am looking forward to the photos! I am giving your experimental design 5 stars. The only info missing now is the fertilizer concentration so you know exactly how much extra nutrients some of your seeds got. Keep up the good work!!!!!!!!! |
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March 16, 2009 | 5:48 AM |
Meagan
(Team Member)
Thanks Thank you for your suggestion about making our experiment repeatable. We definatly do want to make our experiment re-testable to any one else. Thanks! |
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March 16, 2009 | 4:27 AM |
Abby
(Team Member)
Explanation of our project We put 4 of the same seeds in each bag with a piece of filter paper. For each bag we put either 10 ml of water, 5 ml water/5 ml fertilizer, or 10 ml of fertilizer. Now we are measuring the growth of the roots daily. We have noticed that the seeds with 10ml of fertilizer have no root growth yet, which makes sense because of your explanation. thanks p.s. pictures soon to come. |
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March 15, 2009 | 9:25 PM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
A suggestion Before I rate your project, I think you should update your research information above, especially when it comes to the Experimental design. Include specific information about what kind and number of seeds, how you add the fertilizer (now it only says moist papertowel, nothing about fertilizer), how long you will wait and measure, how you will measure the seeds (number of germinated seeds, length of shoots and roots?), and what variables that will be constant for all bags (light, temperature, moisture?). If you include all these things, then someone else can repeat your experiment and check your results; this is called repeatability and is very important. Your conclusion based on your results should be based on an experiment that can be repeated over and over again. I think you have a great experiment, you just need to describe it in more detail. Good luck!!! |
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March 15, 2009 | 9:12 PM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
progress hi girls! I looked at your documents that you have uploaded and this is a great beginning. I didn't see a write up of your experimental design - only the form to fill in the results. What seeds are you using? One or several kinds? If you use several kinds, make sure you have the same kind included in all different fertilizer treatments, because different species germinate at different speeds. Another thing to ponder- seeds have energy and nutrients stored in their endosperm or other parts of the seed, right? So think about this - do they really need fertilizer for germination if they have nutrients inside them already? If not for germination, when do they might need the nutrients from the fertilizer? When you say 100% fertilizer solution, what do you mean? Saturated solution? It is maybe better to give a measurement that another person can repeat, such as 2 g fertilizer in 100 ml water, for example. You also need to write down what kind of fertilizer you use, because there are many kinds with different chemical contents. Could you take a photo of your germination experiment and upload here? I would love to see your setup. Feel free to ask any questions and discuss anything about your project here. I'll check back everyday. Take care! Lena |
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March 14, 2009 | 6:53 AM |
Viktoria
(Team Member)
Our Project We had some seeds sprout, but that was only two or three of them. I guess we will have to see what happens on monday |
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March 12, 2009 | 12:03 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
any growing plants yet? Hi everybody! How is your project coming along? Take care! Lena |
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March 9, 2009 | 4:14 AM |
Abby
(Team Member)
our supplies Supply list • 12 sunflower seeds • 12 pea seeds • 12 alfalfa seeds • 12 red clover seeds • 12 green bean seeds • 15 plastic baggies • 15 pieces of filter paper • 1 bag of fertilizer • Light • Labeling tape • Writing utensils • Paper |
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March 9, 2009 | 4:03 AM |
Joslyn
(Team Member)
fourth person - Joslyn yea..Im the mystery fourth person. I was absent from school for a band thing - LGPE. I am a 9th grade student at Woodstock High School. i am pretty much an all around musical person but I really enjoy Biology/Science too. I hope to hear from u and ur comments |
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March 4, 2009 | 5:01 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
your experimental design Looks like a good project! You will have to do replicates, which means maybe at least 4 bags per treatment. This is just in case something goes wrong with one of the bags, and this also gives your experiment additional statistical power (you 'prove' your hypothesis better if you have more data points that are repeated). And who is the 4th person in the photo??? :) Oh Joslyn, now I get it. My main accomplishment:; Hmm, this is not easy. I have found and described about 50 new plant species (including one named after Harry Potter). I made the first evolutionary tree of a plant family called gentians, it is the most bitter plants in the world, and they grow all over the world. But the most fun part is to travel and see plants from all over the world and learn more about them all the time. My favorite experiment - it isn't really an experiment, but it was in the field: probably when I went to Ecuador to train local people there how to investigate their own rainforest plants for their medicinal effects. We worked in a building with no walls, so the rain was pouring down around us, and the birds and butterflies were everywhere - a scorpion and praying mantis showed up one day on the floor, and the whole week was amazing. Take care! Lena PS. I have a daughter in 9th grade and she is taking AP Physics this year. She is dying to take biology, but that isn't until 11th grade for her. You are luckier. |
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March 4, 2009 | 4:51 AM |
Dr. Lena Struwe
(Scientist/Mentor)
What I do.... Hi Abby, Meagan, and Viktoria ! I am a botanist at Rutgers University (New Jersey), where I teach plant evolution and ethnobotany (how people use plants). My specialty are medicinal plants and wild plants from South America. Some of the things I do are discovering new species in the rainforests, looking for new drugs from plants to treat malaria, look at genetic variation in rare species (how to save them), and taste many different kinds of foods and spices from plants. I get to travel quite a lot in my work, and I like to teach people about how important plants are to human life and survival. In the lab I compare the DNA from many different plant species to see which ones that are most closely related, I look at their cells and structures under microscopes to understand why they look different, and we also test their chemical properties by checking if they can be used as antibiotics, diabetic drugs, or kill off bad parasites. I am looking forward to work with you on your projects. Please feel free to post any ideas, questions, suggestions, cool stuff, and plant-related information - I will respond as fast as I can. My home page is here: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~struwe/ and I also have some photos from some of my travels here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vilseskogen/ See you! Lena |
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March 3, 2009 | 2:25 AM |
Meagan
(Team Member)
Meagan To introduce myself, my name is Meagan and I am a ninth grade student at Woodstock High School. I am in all honors classes and I am taking 2 AP classes next year. Entering highschool, I had two high school credits from taking high school classes in middle school. I am in DECA (a marketing club), participate in soccer, am active in my church and I am first chiar clarinet in band. I am looking forward to this experiment. :) Thanks, Meagan |
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March 3, 2009 | 2:20 AM |
Meagan
(Team Member)
Miss. Strume, Thank you for mentoring us on our plant experiment. We are excited to work with you. Regards, Meagan Anstett (the brunette) |
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March 2, 2009 | 9:11 AM |
Welcome Vine Swingers I am happy to welcome you to this community of plant researchers. Your scientist mentor, Lena Struwe from Rutgers University, will help you focus your ideas as you develop and refine your research question and experimental design. Best wishes as you embark on this scientific journey. We are all pleased to share this experience with you. Have fun! Jennifer Potratz and the PlantingScience team |
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March 2, 2009 | 4:18 AM |
Abby
(Team Member)
Questions What do you do on a daily basis for your career? what are your accomplishments that you have achieved throughout your lifetime(major or minor)? what has been your favorite experiment that you have done? --abby viktoria joslyn meagan |
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March 2, 2009 | 4:01 AM |
Viktoria
(Team Member)
Viktoria Hello. I am a student at Woodstock High School. I'm in all honors classes and next ill be taking two A.P classes, including A.P Biology. I was on our school's team for NOSB. I look forward to working on this project. |
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March 2, 2009 | 4:01 AM |
Abby
(Team Member)
Hello, Im Abby Hi, i'm Abby. I am a freshman at Woodstock High School. I'm in all honors classes this years and next year i will be taking two AP(college courses). They are AP Biology and AP world history. I am a member of the Wodstock Eves Club, which is a volunteer club that helps underprivledged children. I look forward to recieving your help and advice for my project. thank you, Abby |
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