| Explore | To make a plant, seeds must be planted first, and seeds need sunlight and water to ¨grow¨. This means that seeds cannot grow on their own, and if there is a lack in sunlight or there is a drought, seeds will not produce the plant or food that it is supposed to produce, but instead has a slow growing rate and will soon die from lack of either resource. Seeds need to grow in soil because the soil gives germination to the plant to grow. The soil also fertilizes the seed and allows the plant to grow. Seeds can come from the plant that grew them. For example, trees, they can produce seeds which then get into the soil and can produce more, which explains why forests can get so dense. Many things that are produced from plants can be planted in the ground and grown again. Vegetables have seeds inside them, so you could plant a vegetable and the seeds inside it would grow into a new plant. Seeds do require water, but too much or to little of this resource could negatively affect the growth rate of the seed. When a plant is getting water, it takes in the amount of water it needs and doesn't absorb the rest of the water. If the seed has too much water around it, the plant will die. Once a seed has gained enough sunlight and water, it will start to produce a plant. This plant will need more sunlight to make sure the photosynthesis process goes smoothly. A seed is very small and only requires a little amount of sunlight and water, while plants need larger amount of sunlight and water. |
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| Research Question | How does the amount of pollution in water affect the growth rate of germination in a plant? |
| Predictions | If we spray a plant with different amount of Raid!, then it will slow the rate of germination. |
| Experimental Design | For our experiment, we are using 40 corn seeds in bottle edges. We are going to infect the water we plan on using to water the plants with Raid!, a type of plant pollutant. Our plan is to have 12 bottles (3 for each test) and the amount of Raid is 100 microliters, 500 microliters, 1 milliliter, and no Raid at all. |
| Conclusion | The amount of Raid in water does not affect the rate of germination in corn seeds. When we put Raid in water, we added it by treatment. The different treatments, had different effects on the plants. For example, the treatment that grew the most was 500 microliters with 10 total germinating at the end compared to the 100 microliters that had 5 grow. This evidence proves Raid doesn’t have any effect on plant growth. Raid is a solitary spray only killing the bugs that are nature to that type of plant. Lots of insects are attracted to different plants, and Raid won’t stop plant growth. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Grade Level | Middle School Students (grades 6,7,8) |
| School Name | DeWitt Middle School |
| Session | Spring 2019 |