Farewell and Best Wishes

As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.

Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.

After the end of the session, we will be updating the platform and archiving groups and projects, after which time new updates/posts will not be able to be added to projects or groups. Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Project Gallery anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Gallery by keyword, team name, topic, or school name.

Good bye for now.

Warm regards,

The PlantingScience Team

Looks like you are in the final stages of your projects.

It’s great to see that teams from your school are wrapping up and posting conclusions. Enjoy the final stages of your project, and feel free to post any final comments or questions you have for your mentors.

Hi Team,

Thank you for sharing your claims and the evidence you are using to support those claims! These are thought out and expressed clearly!

Thanks also for sharing the images of your drawings, tables, and worksheets. This helps me see what you are seeing.

I'm looking forward to hearing about what you discuss about the project as a whole, and to see the line graphs that you make. I think your plan for a line graph and for your x and y axes is great. I think it will show the data very clearly.

-Chloe

This is my C.E.R

so in class we were doing CER on are the plants that we did and I hade blue light so my claim was that blue light was not very fast at growing the plants evedance was only one plant sprouted the entiare week was the ble light was slow to sprowt 

For data collecting, we will be gathering all the data into a table, and most likely graphing it, too. For graphing we have been thinking from the start to do a line graph. for the data itself we  would have height off the y-axis with the day/germination time on the x-axis. We will most likely be color-coding the different pieces of data as well.

Today in class we did CER. My claim is that the red light plants did not germinate. My evidence is that there was no growth and that there were no seeds. My reasoning states that because there were no seeds and no growth, my plants did not grow. Next week we will make claims, evidences, and reasonings on the project itself.

Hi Team,

Wow! Brody, that would certainly explain why nothing sprouted from the pots under red light!

Will you all be gathering your observations into a table? If you do, it would be great to see all of those height measurements when you've finished.

Great updates!

-Chloe

so my final langth of my plnt was 12 1/2 cm tall

Mt plants grow phenomenally. One of them grew 16 centimeters tall.

Hello. Today we cleaned up our plants and found out why the red plants refused to grow. When we were planting we completely forgot to seed them, while adding about 5-6 seeds in each LED cup. This explains why the LED plants grew so well, and none of the red lights grew. almost all of us have decided to keep growing some of the plants, and Gabe had given me some of his to grow. Thank you for all the advice you have given us thus far when planting.

so far the only plant that has grown under the green light is BD5 that is 10cm. tall

I've got my plants in a window facing south, but its cold here and fall.  The natural light isn't as long or warm, so only one plant has sprouted but it's about 1 cm tall and I uploaded a picture.  

Hi Team,

Those are great ideas! I think you're right about both the angle of the light as well as how much light is being given off by the bulbs. The LED lights are likely giving off both red and blue light, as well as light from across the visible light spectrum. The plants under the LED lights will be able to make use of most of this light. Those that are growing under only red or only blue lights, will have just those wavelengths of light to use!

The angle is also important. Since LED lights typically shine light in a particular direction and regular bulbs will shine light in all directions, it's good to make sure that the regular red and blue bulbs are placed where the plant will receive most of the light from them.

Good observations, and great brainstorming!

Hello. I have discovered what we think is the main reason for the LED growing the fastest. when setting up the experiment we ended up having the light from the red and blue bulbs going in from the side, and the LED bulb going in from the top. We think this makes the plants grow faster, as it seems plants would probably grow the best with the sun in a position imitating noon than imitating sunset or sunrise. We will probably need to adjust our experiment so that all the lights come in from the top. If you have any suggestions, please let us know.

Will I think that the L.E.D. light is making the plant grow faster, now that I think about it, the L.E.D. shins more light then the other lights so the plants get more light to grow in. That is what I think.

so I think that the LED light is working best for it looks most like the sunlight.

Hi Team,

That's great you're already getting some of the seeds to grow. Even though you predicted that the LED lights would make it take longer for the seeds to grow than regular lights, it seems like they are making the seeds grow faster than the red and blue lights. I know you had to stop the regular light experiment, but why do you think the LEDs are making the plant grow faster than just red or just blue light?

For the water, this can be a tricky problem. Sometimes people will put their plants into a shallow pool of water so that there is a constant source that keeps the soil wet, but I think this might make your cups soggy and it might actually be too much water for the plants! As long as the red, blue, and LED experiments are getting the same amount of water, I think you can still compare them, even if the soil gets dried out over the weekend.

-Chloe

so far only 2 of are plants have grown and bothe were under the LED light

One of the L.E.D plants grew to 1 and 1/3 cm.

Hello Mrs. Drummond. We have been growing our plants, and each of us have taken a set. I have claimed red lights, and nothing has grown. I have chosen our first monocot in my group to study closer, and noticed between today and yesterday that some of the soil has disappeared. Also, I had given the first monocot some water on Monday, and after 20 minutes all the water and dried up. Our team thinks that the reason is for them not getting water on Saturday and Sunday. If you have any recommendations or ideas for us, please let us know.

Hi Council of Timothy,

That set up sounds good! It's common for accidents to happen when we set up experiments, so I hope you don't feel too badly that the ones under regular light fell over. When I do my research, it's important for me to notice when I make a mistake and whether I can adjust the set up so that I don't make the mistake again.  In this case, it sounds like you adjusted by removing regular light from the experiment, and that sounds like a reasonable solution!

-Chloe

Are set up in the science lab is the blue light and the seeds for that are on the table to the right. The red light and the seeds for that are on the table to the left. Also the L.E.D. light and the seeds for that are on the ground next to the table on the left. We decided to not do the regular light, because it feel over when we where water the seeds for the L.E.D. light.

Hi Council of Timothy,

That sounds like a great set of hypotheses. I learned a lot from the information you included about your project. I think your experimental design looks great! I like the idea of splitting light into its different parts.  Is there a particular reason you made these predictions about blue vs red light and LED vs fluorescent light?

-Chloe

ruler and clock 

We will be measuring the height and germination of the plant.

Hello Mrs. Drummond. We have decided on our hypothesis. We predict that red light will grow fast but the shortest, and blue will take a bit of time but be the tallest. We have also introduced the ideas of LED light and Fluorescent light. We think that the brightness of the LED lights will make it grow short and take a long time to grow. We also think that the Fluorescent light will make the plants grow fast and tall. If you have any suggestions please let us know.

To The Council of Jimothy,

That sounds like a neat experiment. I think nasturtium is an interesting plant, too. Did you know that you can eat the leaves? I don't recommend trying it without adult permission, but people put them in salads!

I think it's great that you will be growing one of each plant in blue light and red light. What do you predict will be different between the blue light and the red light? Do you think the corn and the nasturtium will grow the same way?

I know it's still early in designing your experiment, but do you know what you will measure? Some examples might be how long it takes for the seed to germinate, how quickly the plant grows, how tall the plant is at the end of a week. Let me know some of your ideas!

-Chloe

Hello. Our team had just talked about what plants we were considering. we thought to do corn and nasturtium. Corn, as its a monocot with a high pH range, and nasturtium, because it is an interesting plant. we were also considering blue light versus red light for our experiment. we would grow one of each plant in both red light and blue light.

Hi Gabe,

It's nice to meet you! It's neat you're learning about the different parts of plants, and that they make their own food. It's pretty cool how they can do that! I've always been fascinated by how roots are able to get water to move UP, against gravity!

I do like playing the piano. It's something fun that I can do when I'm not at work!

Thank you to your team for updating your team photo and coming up with a name!

I'm looking forward to hearing more about your experiments when you get started.

-Chloe

Mrs. Drummond,

I think it is cool that you like to play the piano.

Hi I am Gabe.

I have learned about how plants use photosynthesis to make their own food. I have also learned that plants have three main organs, which are the steam, roots, and leaves.

Hi Brody,

It's nice to meet you! That's awesome you've learned about plant xylem and phloem, and have learned about root growth, too. I hope you enjoy learning more about plants as you do some experiments with seeds!

I like to play the piano, and I like studying plants for my job. Carnivorous plants are pretty cool. Did you know that the venus fly-trap is only found in the wild in North Carolina and South Carolina? There are also some cool carnivorous plants up here where I am in Pennsylvania. 

I'm looking forward to hearing more about what you're learning!

-Chloe

Hey Chloe. I think its cool that you study carnivorous plants.

Hi, I'm Brody. I like playing video games. One thing I've learned about plants are that xylem and phloem transport water and nutrients in plants. Another thing I've learned about plants is that they're roots grow in pulses.

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:

• Student Roadmap
• Plant Investigation Toolkit

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:

• Choose your project team name. Need inspiration? Visit the project gallery to see other student teams.
• 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.