Dear teachers, mentors, and student scientists,

Thank you all so much for the time and dedication you have devoted to these projects over the last few weeks. Ms. Parfitt and Ryan are truly dedicated educators, bringing science and enthusiasm to the classroom. The scientist mentors have done an excellent job being adaptive, interacting with their groups, and helping to do good scientists. And finally, the students have done a great job asking questions, collecting data, and taking care of their ferns! Great job everyone, I hope that this experience has taught you that plants [ferns] are some of the most interesting organisms in biology.

All the best,

Laura, scientist liaison  

Today we saw more growth from the spores and all of them are able to be seen now. However today we may have had the experiment compromised because pathogens may have made it into the Petri dishes. We are now taking extra precautions with masks to prevent a future outbreak

Also a question, what types of single-celled organisms are able to withstand being boiled?

Today we saw a lot of growth from the ferns. We can now determine if they hermaphrodites or males. We saw little organisms from the compost tea so we are going to boil it again because we thought the sperm had been released already. All in all growth seems to have been affected by the tea.

Today, we have looked at our plants for germination. all of our plants have germinated but some faster than others, the ones with the compost tea added had more and larger germination happening. 3/4 full of compost tea had the longest "tail" out of all of the experiments.  All of this evidence helps support our hypothesis.

Today we are beginning our experiment. We have brought in Sam's compost and now we are boiling and straining it to make a "tea". This is so we can kill any fungi that will prevent molding. We predict the compost will accelerate germination because of the added nutrients such as Phosphorus.

what are agar plates? By the way, I will be answering for Sam today. Inside the compost there's a lot of Nitrogen and CO2, which would change the nitrogen levels in the soil. Instead of doing this, our question is by adding compost will it effect the fertility levels in the soil and effect the germination process.

By the way, we will be heading into spring break this next week so we will all be off for a week.

By the way, we will be heading into spring break this next week so we will all be off for a week.

we will be going on spring break as of the 30th and back on the 9th

Will the compost change the results of the sporophyte's growth because of the added CO2? 

Team,

Nice problem solving to deal with unreliable computers.  I wonder if you've developed some testable questions for the experiment? Remember to view the Cfern lifecycle.

Hi team!

We've added another teacher to this team as an observer, so you may see her log in, but please do not be alarmed! Sometimes teachers are interested in participating in joining PlantingScience, but they don't know how it works. This is one way we can show them, so we appreciate your professionalism in your posts!

Andrew and Evan are both having technical difficulties, Evan forgot his password and Andrew's computer is frozen.

Hello, I am here to inform you Ms. Pretz that the class has indeed gone over how organisms transfer from haploid to diploid. Fertilization changes ploidy by antheridium (sperm) delivers DNA  to the archegonium (eggs) and this results in the hapoid "offspring" becoming diploid. Also, humans are haploid when they are just the 2 sex cells or in other words, when they aren't humans. 

Hey Chelsea I'm replying for Kota and myself because at the moment she doesn't have a computer. It's Kota now, I am haploid because I need to reproduce sexually to have offspring of my own. It's Sam now, a human haploid cell is just a gamete that hasn't been fertilized. I don't know about fish yet, if you could explain that would be great.

Hey we're back online today and now learning about the alteration of generations and how haploid  is when you have half of an a chromosome and half of the DNA, therefore it has to undergo fertilization and all of that. But what's interesting is that plants can be Haploid? Just wondering how that works, because this  is  different than what we were studying about animals and diploid cells. 

Hey 1B team 4. Haploid means the cells have half of the chromosome and half of the DNA, so in most cases it needs sexual reproduction. Diploid means the cells have two chromosomes, meaning asexual reproduction would occur. 

Hello team:)

Today we've learned that a haploid is half the DNA or half of the chromosomes. In the world there are such thing as haploid plants that don't need sexual reproduction to reproduce. Another thing we learned is that diploid has 2 chromosomes.

Hi team!  Now that you are learning more about the alternation of generations, its time to think about where in the cycle you'd like to investigate more.  Start with  "I wonder..." and see if you can develop a few testable questions about some aspect of the C ferns' haploid life.  Just like our aquaterrapod experiment, your investigation should be rooted in good science reasoning. That's where your mentor can come in. They might suggest resources you can read, ask probing questions to push your thinking, or even remind you a little about what plants need since we aren't all that familiar with plants.  Your goal today is to brainstorm possible testable questions and update your mentor. 

Hi team! Now that you are learning more about the alternation of generations that our Cferns undergo, I hope you'll start brainstorming questions to test.  What do you wonder about regarding germination, rhyzoid growth, gametophyte growth, male to hermaphrodite ratios, etc?  How could you alter one of those aspects of the fern?  Just like in our aquaterrapod experiment, your testable question should be rooted in good science reasoning.  That's where your mentor can come in! They can suggest resources, ask probing questions to push your thinking, or even remind you about what plants need since we don't have all that much expertise in plants.  Your goal today is to get 2 or 3 questions written in an update to give your mentor some idea of what you are thinking. You don't have to decide on the exact question today, but get those brains storming!

Hi Team!

Quick reminder: In order to maintain student privacy, please refrain from posting last names, email addresses, links to Google docs, social media handles, etc. We will remove them as we find them.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Hey 1B team 4. I'm Samantha but I go by Sam and I'm in ninth grade. My interests in school include AP Human Geography and Geometry. I enjoy science because I can use my hands in different activities. One more fact about about me is I love exploring the outdoors. 

Hey buds, I'm Andrew and I am a freshman. In school I like comedy that happens in school and especially ap human geography. I like geography so if we could incorporate some of that into the experiment then that would be more beneficial to my learning style. One thing about me that may help all of you to get to know me is I like to Spanish 

Hello the collective of team 4, me llamo es Evan, I'll probably be your least favorite, I enjoy computer sciences and am chronically lazy, I enjoy comics, video games, welsh, and not writing long introductions for the purpose of helping people I mostly already know to know me.

Hi 1B team 4. Name is Dakota but I prefer to go by Kota. I'm a Freshman at Central High school. My interest in school is my science class, if not I play volleyball or softball. One way I like to learn science is by doing experiments.

red bull gives you wings