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Mask Wearing Plant Geeks

Project by group dmsgrayspring2021


Info

Explore We knew that plants needed water, sunlight, and space to grow! plants take in co2 plants do photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
Research Question How does the sugar in lemonade, lemon juice and sugared water instead of plain water affect how fast the pea seeds sprout and how long they grow?
Predictions If there is too much sugar in each of the liquids, then it will not grow as quickly, because plants grow on water, not sugar. Sugar is an unnatural input to help seeds sprout and grow, so it could make it die.
Experimental Design Independent Variable = type of liquid Dependent Variable = how fast it grows Variables to Control = type of seed, dampness of paper towel, type of liquid Materials: paper towel, petri dish, sugar snap peas(4 or two in each),lemon, toothpick, lemonade, water (20 drops for each),...
Conclusion Claim: My results are mostly inconclusive, but the bottled water grew on the last day.  Evidence:  On every day except for on the last day the seeds didn’t grow at all, but on the last day the bottled water grew 1.3 inches. This was a lot because the lemonade, lemon juice, and the sugar water...
About this Project

This group was my favorite group to follow. They were excited about the project from the beginning! They worked hard to consider the best way to investigate their question. They did a nice job taking in to consideration their mentors feedback. And one group member in particular did a great job...

Updates

Get to know your team’s scientist mentor, who will encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. The more you share your ideas and research info, the more your mentor can help. You may also hear from a scientist mentor liaison who will be helping all the teams in your class.
PlantingScience Staff
updated the project info
PlantingScience Staff
has been updated by administrator
PlantingScience Staff
has been updated by administrator
PlantingScience Staff
has been updated by administrator
PlantingScience Staff
has been updated by administrator
Yvette
said

Hi Mr. Hirsch, I just wanted to say thank you so much for guiding us throughout this investigation!

It was really fun working with you, and I had a lot of fun!

Paige and Christine, you guys were really fun to work with!

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Hi Yvette,

    Thank you for your great participation on this project!  I had a blast following along with your progress, and I am glad this was a good experience! 

Christine
said

Thank you very much from all your help, ideas and comments. I don't think this investigation would have gone as it did without your help! It may have been a sad ending to it, but we found some pretty interesting things! 

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Thank you Christine!  Good luck with the rest of your school year and keep up the great work!

Paige
said

Thank you Mr. Hirsh. I had a lot of fun through this experiment, and you made it better by giving good advice and feedback.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Thank you Paige, it was a pleasure working with you too!  Good luck with your studies, and I hope that you consider a career in the sciences when the time comes!

PlantingScience Staff
said

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. You have until Tuesday, April 25, 2021, to post ALL of your updates, comments, and goodbyes. 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

Christine
uploaded Measuring how long a pea seed would grow with different liquids.png in project files
    Christine
    said

    Day 5 is when a seed sprouted 

    Only one seed out of the five sprouted (in the bottled water).

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Ok, thanks!  Are you able to continue this experiment or is 6 days it?   I imagine that these data will continue changing if you give the pea seeds more time. 

    Christine
    said

    We had an option to, but since we didn't know that we could have possibly saved the seeds, we made our last observations and threw them away. 

Evelyn Gray
updated the project info
Evelyn Gray
updated the project info
Paige
said

 

Explanation:

Claim: My results are mostly inconclusive, but the bottled water grew on the last day. 

Evidence:  On every day except for on the last day the seeds didn’t grow at all, but on the last day the bottled water grew 1.3 inches. This was a lot because the lemonade, lemon juice, and the sugar water didn’t sprout at all. Also over the weekend all the petri dishes and seeds grew mold.

Reasoning: This outcome was explained when I did a little research. I found out that it was the sugar that affected the growth of the seeds. When the liquid a seed is trying to use to grow has too much sugar then the sugar will suck up the liquid and make they seed die from “dehydration”. This result is pretty much what I had expected. I had expected for the bottled water to do the best because it had no sugar, but i didn’t think the other ones wouldn’t grow at all. I also never expected for them to get moldy at the last minute. It wasn’t really a fair test because we didn’t always add the same amount of liquid and we didn’t really measure the sugar so it wasn’t super fair.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Hi Paige,

    Great observations!  I always say that experiments can never fail, they can just provide inconclusive data!  The only way that science fails is when scientists do not take their observation and improve their next experiment.  It sure seems to me that you all are well positioned to do this again differently, and probably get more consistant data.  Great job.

Yvette
said

 

Some errors that I think were made during this investigation, are as follows!

We did not clean the pipet after we used it. We used the same pipet for all the seeds and we did not clean it before using it in another liquid!

So I think if we would have cleaned it or used different ones for each liquid it would have been better because the remains of one liquid could contaminate another!

The liquids we gave the seeds had too much sugar, and if a seed/plant gets too much sugar it will not grow! I think we should have done some research on how much sugar a seed/plant can handle and balanced it out! ( although that was the whole point of our investigation)

We used a lot of similar liquids, I think if we used liquids that were a bit more different from each other!, it would have given more individual results! 

I am not very confident in this investigation, because as you can see there is quite a few things, we could have done differently!

 

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Hi Yvette, I agree that it looks like there was too much sugar.  I agree with your great suggestion of looking at different concentrations of sugar for the next experiment, which can impact the seeds in addition to all of the infesting fungi that you all cultivated as well! 

Christine
uploaded File_000 15.jpeg in project files
    Christine
    said

    They all molded :(

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    I am really sorry to see that, but mold is something I know a little bit about!  Can you send me some better pictures of the moldy seeds so I can maybe tell you something interesting about it!  Also, what do you think you could have done differently in the early part of your experiment to kill/remove any external fungal spores that may be contaminating the outside of the seed coat?

    Christine
    said

    So we had to through the seeds away but we can try and zoom in on the picture for each dish if that would help.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Hi Christine,

    It's all good, no worries.  I think if you would have soaked the seeds in a 10% bleach solution, that would have been enough to kill most of the infesting (i.e., on the outside) fungal spores that are naturally occurring on seeds. 

Christine
uploaded File_000 14.jpeg in project files
Christine
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    Christine
    said

    it's not a great picture, but I tried to get the opening. Seeds are getting there!

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Ok, so the seeds are starting to germinate?  You are right that the picture is a little blurry.  

Christine
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Paige
updated the project info
Christine
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    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Thanks Christine!  Looking good.  Is the bottle water dryer than the lemon juice and the lemonade?  Keep up your observations!  

    Christine
    said

    I think so. None have sprouted yet, but hopes are still high! We started on Monday, not Thursday so ours will take longer to sprout.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Ok, great.  You may have some germination occur over the weekend, so just do the best you can. 

Christine
said

Update: Mrs. Gray said we should add more liquid to the dishes so that's the little change to the investigation. 

    Christine
    said

    It's a little much, but now from 20 drops we are doing 40. I agree that it was quite dry so hopefully this will help they germinate and sprout.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Ok, great!  As long as the water treatments are consistent across all the samples, you should still be good!  

Christine
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Yvette
uploaded IMG_0884.jpg in project files
    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Ok, looking good!  Be sure to record your observations at least once a day, because you may see a difference in the timing of germination in addition to the eventual growth.

    Christine
    said

    Will do! P.S. we changed the amount of drops for the liquids to 20 drops. When we did 10, it didn't seem like enough.

Robert Louis Hirsch
said

Great prediction!  What specific ingredients in the lemonade do you think are bad for the plant?  What type of lemonade are you using (natural is quite different than dry mixes)?

    Christine
    said

    Possibly the sugar in the lemonade. I am not sure what type, but when Mrs. Gray gets it, we will let you know. Most likely natural.

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    A cool control for your sugar idea is to figure out how much sugar is in the lemonade and then just make a solution containing the same concentration of just sugar. Doing so should be pretty easy (probably you or one of your lab mates has sugar at home they can bring), and then you could compare the differences between sugar and powdered lemonade mix.  If you used real lemonade, that would be much more acidic since it is made by mixing real lemon juice (full of citric acid) and sugar. 

    Christine
    said

    I'm a little confused. Could you elaborate?

    Paige
    said

    So what you mean is that we should figure out how much sugar is in the lemonade and try to balance it?

    Robert Louis Hirsch
    said

    Hi Paige and Christine, I am so sorry for missing these comments when you posted them!  I was asking because depending on the type of lemonade, there could be multiple different chemicals impacting the seed germination.  Natural lemonade will have lots of sugar in addition to citric acid from the lemons, whereas lemonade from a powdered mix will have just sugar.  However, it looks like you worked on this issue without my input, so great job!

Christine
updated the project info

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