Hi folks,

I took a look at what you've written, and I'm seeing lots of good things. I think you did a good job of describing your predictions about what could happen, and your hypothesis and the reasoning for your hypothesis is really clear. I do have a few questions that'll help me understand more about your project. 

In the first box, under Explore, you asked the question of how photosynthesis would be affected by the presence of caffeine, but in the Research Question box, you asked about germination. I was wondering if you were using germination rate as a way of testing for caffeine's effect on photosynthesis or if you switched ideas and are more interested in germination on its own? The reason that I'm asking is because germination happens before a plant is able to do photosynthesis, so from the experiment that you wrote, you wouldn't be able to draw a conclusion about the effect on photosynthesis.

Looking more at germination, can you tell me what you know about it? What makes germination happen and what sort of things do you think will make germination happen more often or less often if the seeds were out in a garden? Like I said, the reason for your hypothesis is really clear, but I want to make sure that you're basing your hypothesis on your knowledge of how plants work.

I think that you have a good outline for your experimental design, but you should add some more details. (I'm telling my seniors in college the same thing, so don't feel bad!). Here are some ideas I had about where you can add some more detail.

1. The number of seeds you are going to use in each cup. When we set up experiments, we want to be sure that the observations that we make are repeatable. Putting more than one seed in each cup will give you more confidence that the observations that you make in the experiment are repeatable.
2. The exact amount of water you're going to be adding to each cup. Since you want the amount of caffeine to be the only thing that changes in your experiment, you should set a specific amount of water to add in each cup.
3. The exact amount of caffeine you're going to be adding to each cup. "A little" and "a lot" are not very specific, and they might mean different things to different people. When you use an exact amount, there won't be any confusion. One thing that you could consider doing is looking up how much caffeine is in a can of soda or a cup of coffee to help you decide how much caffeine is a lot vs a little. 
4. How you're going to measure germination and growth. Germination seems pretty straightforward, but with growth, you could measure the length of the root or the weight of the plant. It helps to be specific about what you're going to measure before you start the experiment, so that you know what to do when it comes time to make observations.

Anyway, overall, great start to your experiment and let me know if you have any more questions!

Hi everyone! Thanks for the updates about your experiments, I really enjoyed hearing about how things turned out. The amount of carbon dioxide available for a plant to be able to do photosynthesis is really important, and scientists today are still studying that relationship.

Hi Abby! Thanks for introducing yourself! Not trying to sway your opinion either way, but I really love biochemistry and majored in it when I was in college. I minored in chemistry, so I also love it too, but I definitely preferred biochem. But it all depends on what you're interested in learning about, because both can be really great preparation for med school. 

I love doing research! My favorite part of science is getting to do experiments and watching what happens as a result. That's one of the reasons why I really like working with plants, is because it's pretty easy to see how different conditions can change how the plant behaves or grows. So doing this is not at all stressful for me. Because even if the experiment doesn't work the way that you think it should, you can still learn something really important about your experiment.