vsnhsfrazerwosspring2024 project 3
- Project reviewer
Joined 08 Feb 2024
Project by group vsnhsfrazerwosspring2024
Info
| Explore | Plants are vital to human survival and play key roles in our lives from producing oxygen to providing proper food. They come in many shapes and sizes, and benefit humans all over the world. Many factors contribute to plant growth and survival, such as the amount of water and sunlight provided to... |
|---|---|
| Research Question | Our group is interested in drought and its possible effects on seed germination, and this led us to question whether the amount of water used to water seeds impacts the process of seed germination. This is an important question because drought severely affects plant growth and survival across the... |
| Predictions | The possible outcomes could be that some seeds with a certain variable could germinate at a different rate or not even germinate at all compared to other seeds with other variables that could germinate faster and better. We will think this will happen because plants require different amounts of... |
| Experimental Design | We plan to test this by watering 16 pea seeds (4 in each group) with 4 different water amounts. The 4 groups would be the fully saturated group watered with 20ml of water, the half-saturated group watered with 10ml of water, the droplets group watered with 2ml of water, and the unsaturated group... |
| Conclusion | This study conducted on the saturated of seeds showed that contrary to expectations, the fully saturated seeds outperformed the half-saturated seeds. Thus, indicating that seeds slightly submerged in water were most successful. The analysis yielded a p-value of 0.55, indicating no significant... |
| About this Project | This project went really well because the students took a big picture subject like climate change and distilled it well with the help of their mentor into something they could test in the classroom using seeds. Both parties did a great job communicating! -- Imeña Valdes, Liaison |
Updates
On behalf of our group, thank you so much Dr. Gavin-Smyth for collaborating with us on this planting project! We appreciate your insight into our experiment and helpful suggestions regarding our methodology. We are now more aware of the important roles mentors have in science research as you were able to answer many questions and deepen our understanding of science! We wish you all the best in your current Impatiens research and beyond!
Good afternoon Dr. Gavin-Smyth! Thank you for your suggestion to upload the link in to the "Files" section, we have done that so you can access it now. We are currently starting our report for this experiment, and we will take into consideration all your suggestions about Seed D. Thank you for helping us understand the power of using replicates in an experiment, we really appreciate all your help, and we will keep you updated on our report.
Good afternoon, Dr. Gavin-Smyth! Thank you for your suggestions, we have been implementing them. We have continued to conduct our experiment, however we encountered some more questions. What do you recommend we do in the data table about the days we did not record data such as the weekends? We were also wondering about Seed D which did not grow like the other seeds in the fully saturated petri dish. What should we do about the seed? Do you think it could throw off the data? This is a link to the data we have collected throughout our experiments.
[Link Removed]
Hi Team! I tried to look at the link but it didn't work for me. If you can upload it into "Files" that should be better.
There's not much you can do about missing data collection on the weekend days! Without seeing your data sheet, I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think this should be a problem.
Finally, that's too bad bout Seed D which didn't germinate. It might throw off the results, but that's okay. When you write up a report for this experiment, this is something that you can talk about in the discussion, and scientists do this all the time to explain results that are surprising! Is your final measurement going to be germination (Yes/No)?
The reason Seed D didn't germinate might just be something random, or this might be something to do with the saturation treatment. If there were a few more replicates of each treatment, you could figure this out. When you have replicates, you can more confidently say that the effect that you're seeing is a result of your treatment, and not a result of randomness. For example, if you have 20 seeds that are getting the "saturation" treatment, and 1 out of 20 seeds doesn't germinate, I think we could probably just say that that 1 seed didn't germinate for a random reason. If 10 out of 20 didn't germinate, then this is very strong evidence that it's not something random happening. Even using just 4 replicates can give you more power to see if your results are due to randomness or the effect of your treatment! Designing an experiment with replicates in your classroom is a big challenge because of limited space and resources of course, so I don't expect you to change your experiment and do this now, but I do want you all to understand the power of using replicates in an experiment :)
Good afternoon, Dr. Gavin-Smyth! We started our process about a week ago and the results are coming in. We have been measuring the number of seeds germinated, the length of the radical, and the length of the sprouts. So far we found that the seeds with no saturation are not germinating despite our 12-hour pre-soak. The fully saturated seeds with 20mL of water have the longest radical , followed by half-saturated seeds and the droplets. The average length of the fully saturated seeds is 54.5 mm. The half-saturated seeds had an average length of 50.75 mm. Finally, the seeds with droplets had an average length 29.0 mm.
We also have several questions for you. The seeds in the petri dishes began to have radicals and sprouts that pushed against the lid, so we removed it. However the radicals and sprouts now appear to be drying. Is there anything we can do to prevent this without removing the sunlight? We were also wondering, how long you recommend us to continue the process?
Hi Team!
Thanks so much for these updates, it's exciting to hear how things are coming along and how you're already noticing differences in your treatments.
Regarding your question about the seedlings now drying out... Did you plan on watering your seeds only once? This is probably a question you have to check with your teacher about: Are you ready to have your experiment be finished? If you only wanted to water your seeds once with the various different saturation treatments, then your seedlings will probably die very soon with the lids off. If you want your experiment to go on for another week or more, then you will need to water them again. My suggestion for this would be repeat the watering treatments exactly as you did them the first time.
Good afternoon, Dr. Gavin-Smyth! We appreciate your insight and have decided to go with your suggestion to test how the amount of water affects the process of seed germination. Our plan is to have 12 pea seeds in 3 petri dishes, 4 in each petri dish. Prior to placing the pea seeds in the dishes, we plan to soak the seeds for 12 hours. The dishes will be by the window with sunlight. Dish 1 will be fully saturated with water, Dish 2 will be half saturated, and Dish 3 will have no saturation.
We would love to hear your thoughts about the plan! We were also wondering whether we should soak the seeds or not, because otherwise Dish 3 seeds will have no exposure to water.
Hi Team,
This sounds great, I like the new plan! I think that it is a good idea to soak the seeds ahead of time like you've planned. Just make sure that your hypothesis and reasoning takes into account that the question is not about complete lack of water but about the lack of water during the establishment phase.
What will you measure?
If you have the resources, it could be interesting to introduce another treatment that has just a very small amount of water, like just a few drops. And on that note, I suggest that you standardize the amount of water you are going to add to each treatment. In your classroom do you have any beakers? If yes, then decide on the amount of water in mL. If you don't have beakers, then use the same vessel every time and mark it with the volume for each treatment.
Good afternoon, Dr. Gavin-Smyth! Our group is interested in global warming and its possible effects on seed germination. This led us to question whether the water temperature used to water seeds impacts the process of germination. We plan to test this by watering 6 radish seeds (2 in each group) with 3 different water temperatures. The control group will receive room temperature water, one of the treatment groups will receive cold water, and the other will receive warm water heated by a heat lamp.
We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how to improve our experiment and/or make it more meaningful?
Hi team! This is a really cool idea! And I love that you are thinking about how global warming affects seed germination. I think that you might be able to make your experiment even more effective if you can make the temperature treatment more constant throughout. Is it possible to put your pots in warmer vs. cooler parts of the room? Could you use the heat lamp for a longer part of the experiment in addition to warming up the water? As another thought, a big aspect of climate change is drought, so you could alternatively look at seed germination responses to different levels of water.
Hello team! I'm looking forward to hearing updates about what you have in mind for your investigation on the seeds!
Hi! Thank you again for replying! The plant I appreciate most at the moment is the jasmine flower. I have many fond memories of my grandparents bringing me jasmine flowers to smell. Then my grandmother gave me a jasmine-scented perfume, that I initially thought smelled great on her, and I love wearing it on special occasions.
Hi Abigail, thank you so much for sharing about the jasmine flower... that flower smells heavenly and I love the tiny bottle of perfumed jasmine oil that I have from Tanzania :)
I just looked at Plants of the World Online https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:328128-2 and learned that there are over 200 species of Jasmine!
Welcome to your PlantingScience project page!
Welcome to this community of plant researchers. As your team plans and conducts your own research project, you will be mentored by a scientist. The mentor's role is to encourage and guide you through the process of scientific discovery. The more you share your ideas and research information online, the more your mentor can help. You can also find out more about your mentor. What is their research about? Why did they go into science? What do they like to do when they are not working?
You may also hear from this classroom’s assigned scientist liaison. Liaisons work with several mentors and help make sure the conversations are going strong. They may also offer some extra advice or encouragement.
Two resources can help you get started:
Best wishes as you start this scientific journey. We are all pleased to share this experience with you. Have fun!
To set up your project page:
- Upload a photo or avatar for your team.
- Introduce yourselves to your scientist mentor and get the conversation started!
- PLEASE ONLY CLICK "Share with team" ONCE. Sometimes the page takes a little while to refresh, so please be patient!
In order to protect student privacy, please DO NOT share:
- last names
- social media handles
- links to Google/Sharepoint documents, spreadsheets, or images
We will remove these items as we find them in posts.
Thank you for replying, Tanzania is so far away from the USA! I agree that plants play a major role in our lives, and I think that the tree is the most important plant in my life because it provides us with oxygen along with other plants, it provides us with timber to create structures, and some provide us with food like a banana tree.
Hello everyone! I am so happy to meet you all! How exciting that I get to mentor you along the way during your very first experiment with plants! My name is Nora and I'm a PhD student at Northwestern University and Chicago Botanic Garden. I'm wrapping up my dissertation on a large group of plants called Impatiens. There are over 1200 species of Impatiens, mostly found across the tropics of Asia and Africa, but a few can be found here in North America too. In particular I study the ones that can only be found in Africa. I have done a lot of research in Tanzania collecting rare Impatiens in the field. Back in Chicago, I work in the lab to study their DNA, and I also work in the herbarium to describe new species.
Even if you are not a botanist, plants play a huge role in anyone's life--they are our food, they help give us medicine, food, shelter, clothing and warmth, beauty products, etc etc. So my question for you all is this: what is the most important plant in your life, or the plant you appreciate the most at this time?
Hello, my name is Alisha, and I am a sophomore enrolled in Authentic Science Research, in Valley Stream North High School. I am interested in studying Environmental Science. In my free time I enjoy spending time with my family, I also I enjoy volunteering to help others. Although my class has never done Planting Science and I have never grown a plant, I am very excited to learn how to grow our seed and to work with my peers.
Hello, my name is Jasraj in the Authentic Science Research class, and I am interested in doing something in the field of technology, specifically something with drones or augmented reality. Some hobbies I enjoy include wrestling and playing table tennis. On the topic of planting science, I am somewhat excited to do this and grow a new plant since it is something new and haven't done before.
Hello, I am Osama. a science research student interested in studying sports science. Two of my hobbies are playing soccer and running track. I'm excited to do planting science as I have never researched plants before, and this is all new to me.
Hello! I am Abigail, a sophomore enrolled in the Authentic Science Research program at Valley Stream North High School in New York. I am currently interested in studying political science, specifically political psychology. I enjoy playing volleyball and spending time with my sisters. In regard to this project, I am feeling a bit nervous because I rarely work with plants.