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! 

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

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!

Day 5 is when a seed sprouted 

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

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. 

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. 

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.

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! 

They all molded :(

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?

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.

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. 

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

I'm a little confused. Could you elaborate?

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

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!

Hi Christine, great questions!  Here are some questions that may help flush out your thoughts more: 

1) What plants (seeds) are you working with?  Some plant seeds require specific wavelengths of light to germinate!

2) Water amount is a good variable to measure!  I am interested in learning how you will set this up.

3) What are some items that you think may have an impact?  Again, it depends a lot on the type of plants you are working with. 

4) How about temperature?  Do you have any way to incubate your seeds in different temperatures (this does not have to be super well controlled, but somewhere cold, room temperature, and warm)?

1) We have options of using Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Pea, Corn, Fava Bean, and Pearl Millet.

2) We were thinking about doing something that's related to the water one! Seeing how quickly a plant could grow with a certain amount of water or something.

3) Well, one of our teammates, Paige, talked about using lemonade or some other liquid in replacement of water. Seeing how it would turn out?

4) Mrs. Gray said that we don't really have a way to change temperature, as in heating. It could be possible putting it in the fridge, but were not sure. 

We will keep you updated.

Ok sounds good!  Let me know if you have any questions! 

Hi Lou! I definitely appreciate you working with our group this year! I really appreciate how you responded to each of your group members. Thank you again!

No problem, and glad I can help!  

Hi Christine, thank you for the introduction! My grandparents lived in Grays Harbor County (about two hours west of Seattle), and I spent most of my summers as a child in Washington.  Cold and rainy most of the time, but I loved spending time outside!  Great memories.  What are you favorite type of stories to write?

Well I don't have a major preference but I do normally write horror stories. A few days ago, we had a English project and I wrote a story called Jangles. It's kind of about a killer jack and the box that kidnaps teenagers... I know it's not everyone's favorite genre, but it's mine!

Hi Yvette!  What is your favorite food to bake?  Have you gotten into the sourdough craze that everyone seems to be doing now during the pandemic?  Also, what do you craft?  I have taken to cross stitching recently (mainly to make funny pieces that I give to my friends)

I really like baking cakes!

I have not gotten into sourdough yet but my mom and I wanted to try it out!

When I craft I usually make things like rings, necklaces, and bracelets.

Cross stitching sounds fun!

Hi Paige,

Thank you for introducing yourself!  Nine siblings sounds just insane, I have no idea what that is like (I only have one younger brother).  I crocheted a bit when I was a kid because my grandma did and she showed me, but I wouldn't know how to start anymore.  Also, while I have never read the Shadowhunters series, my wife has, and she LOVED them!  What are you going to crochet next?

I am going to try to crochet a pair of socks or maybe just a bigger blanket. Also I think it is really cool that your wife loved the shadowhunters series they are really great books.

That's cool Paige!  Have you tried knit caps?  My wife bought a circular loom, and she can complete a hat in about 90 minutes if she uses thick yarn.