| Explore | From our research we looked at three explorable questions, these are. Does sandy soil hold more air pockets? What is a good type of sand to use in soil? How does sand in soil help plants grow? We learned that horticultural sand is the best type of sand to use because it allows for good soil drainage. If a plant doesn't have good soil drainage than it can become saturated and potentially flood. We also learned that sandy soil holds large air pockets. We did an investigation where we slowly poured water into a beaker that had some sand in it and we saw that lots of bubbles were released which told us that there was air bubbles in the sand. Horticultural sand is the best because of the varying size in particles which allows for more air pockets or bubbles. |
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| Research Question | How does the amount of sand in soil affect how much a corn seed grows? |
| Predictions | If we use 50ml of sand then our corn seeds will grow the most because from our research we learned that sand allows for good drainage of the soil so that our seed doesn't flood. |
| Experimental Design | We are using different amounts of sand mixed with the same amount of soil. The different amounts we have are 25ml of sand, 50ml, and 100ml. We are using corn seeds and we will plant 2 seeds in each container which means we need to use 18 corn seeds. Our materials list is sand, 9 clear plastic bottles, potting soil, water, and 9 corn seeds. Our procedure is, cut the bottom of 9 clear plastic bottles off, put 50ml of potting soil in the bottom of the cutout, mix 25ml, 50ml, and 100ml of sand into 3 of the plastic cutouts, place 2 corn seeds in each cutout, slowly pour 25 ml of water into each of the cutouts, Every school day measure the amount of growth of the corn seeds in cm and record in a data table, After the 2 weeks are up we will measure the final growth and find out what measurement of sand grew the best. |
| Conclusion | The less amount of sand that you add to potting soil the better a corn seed will grow. At the start for the first two days none of the seeds sprouted. Once we got to the weekend and came back the next week trial one which is only potting soil had grown 12cm, and trial four which is only sand had grown 5cm. Over the span of a week trial one grew a total of 21cm trial 2 grew 20cm,trial 3 grew 14cm, and trial 4 grew 11cm. This doesn't make sense because sand is supposed to grow good in sandy soil. This may have happened because we layered the sand below the potting soil to try and use it as a sponge. I think that our results made sense but also didn't at the same time. |
| Investigation Theme | AFW |
| Teacher Name | Evelyn Gray |
| School Name | DeWitt Middle School |
| Session | Spring 2022 |