Hi Team!

Sorry for the gap in contact. I hope everyone is doing well with the current situation.

I've looked at your graphs and I think they are great! Hats off to all of you and your data collection. 

There seem to be some interesting things happening in the graphs! 

Concerning the graphing style, it might be good to use a scatter plot without the lines connected, this might make it a bit easier to see individual data points. The lines are good because they illustrate the passage of time, but the overlaps make it difficult to see the trajectory of individual growth. Some options might allow you to space out the dots so we can see each individual. I will play around with these options on my end as well. 

I also see that you've started to identify trends in your data and think of some explanations! This is great, and the strategy we want to use as scientists. We want to ask a question, make a hypothesis, collect data, and then use that data to either confirm or reject our hypotheses. 

Concerning trends in your data, there seem to be a few we can nail down. Your controls seem to exhibit linear growth (straight line) - this is what we would expect! And an important result. Your plants that received propel show some interesting things: the 3 teaspoons of propel treatment (lets call this our "medium" treatment) seem to not have grown at all! The 4 teaspoon treatment (lets call this our "high" treatment) seem to have actually grown!

First, we should think about why the 3 teaspoon treatment didn't work. Because nothing grew, perhaps something was wrong with the treatment? Or perhaps all of the 3 teaspoon plants were kept in a bad spot. Or, maybe 3 teaspoons was an bad concentration. 

Interestingly, the 4 teaspoon treatment seemed to grow decently. However, they do not seem to have grown better than the control. Might this mean that propel is bad for plants? Or maybe that too many nutrients is bad? Is it possible that too many nutrients are not good? These are all considerations.

You guys are already off to a great start thinking about explanations for your results. We know that plants need nutrients, light, and water to conduct photosynthesis and grow. But like anything, too much/too little water or nutrients can be bad! What do you guys think? 

If anything was unclear or if you have any questions, let me know! I'll try to be on the board daily. 

Best,

Joshua Craig 

These are some good observations! One of the things to always consider is sample size, imagine if you had hundreds of plants being tested, do you think you would get the same results?

It is possible that they just "put too much gatorade in", maybe another concentration could have been better. But also consider what else is in gatorade, sugar, salts, maybe these could also affect the plant even though gatorade has electrolytes in it. 

Additionally, compare what is in the control vs. gatorade vs. propel. Consider how these might cause your results. Also, consider what error might also have occured to create odd results, for example, having too much concentration of a treatment. 

Instead of thinking only about how the experiment should have gone, think about what the results are, and why you might have gotten them. You can talk about your predictions, whether you results agree or contradict your predictions, and why.

Let me know if you have any questions about this!

Best,

Joshua Craig