| Explore | I know outside school, most plants need water, soil, and sun. Thing we discovered in school are photosynthesis, Pollen and pollinators, and that rocks are good at keeping water from leaking. A question about plants that interests me is why do the plants in the desert not need as much water as plants in the regular world? -D.V I know that plants need a lot of sun light and that plants will move their own bodies to get sun light so they can grow. They take a little water at a time in through the roots. Plants have different cells then animals, and different from a human cell. In my old school we used rocks in different layers and and just soil to see how the water and seeds would grow. A question I have is how does a plant die and then come back when they don't have water a little while?-C.H |
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| Research Question | We want to test different things used as soil. We want to see if pencil shavings will work the same as regular soil when a seedling is planted into it? Also, what will happen to the seeds growth while using pencil shavings? The way we came up with this question is we were wondering in pencil shavings will work as a substitute for soil. This question fits with the topic we work on because we work on seeing how plants change in different settings. -D.V We want to study how plants grow when they are in different type of environments like when they don't have water, or pencil shavings in the soil, and a different amount of materials in with the seeds or already grown plants.-C.H |
| Predictions | I think there could be only 2 outcomes, it will work semi okay and the plant will kind of grow, the second outcome is the plant won’t grow and will just die. I think this will happen because the plant might adapt to the pencil shavings (Who knows?), or will mostly die because the pencil shavings won't help the plant with nutrients, and the chemicals in the pencil shavings also kill it. -D.V I think that the plant will grown but it will come out a little different then other one because it has materials that are not in the wild. The things that are in the materials/variables that are in the materials of the objects could kill it because it could at like a poison.-C.H |
| Experimental Design | Our plan is to have our constant/base,( Water on bottom with string, soil, and basil seeds.) compete with our pencil shaving cup,( Everything the base has just pencil shavings in substitute for soil). We also have a cup with a mixture of pencil shavings and soil. We are testing the growth levels in each cup to see how they compete. The way we will record our data is by taking a pictures of the plants each day.-D.V we always want water and a string connected, and to the soil. We will have the seeds in the middl to see if the growth of the seeds and roots will change. We have one cup with just pencil shaving in the one cup and soil in one, and one with a little bit of pencil shavings in it and if it has a reaction it will because of water and pencil shaving.-C.H |
| Investigation Theme | AFW |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| Teacher Name | Brian Mulcahey |
| School Name | Catholic Memorial School |
| Session | Fall 2021 |