| Explore | Seeds are dormant which is kinda like hibernating. Seeds have three conditions for germinating, water, a place for their roots, and the right temperature. Seeds have glucose inside of them so that they can start with cellular restoration so they have energy to grow. |
|---|---|
| Research Question | How does the size of the seed affect how fast the seed germinates? |
| Predictions | Myles, Haleigh, and Dominic predict that the biggest seed (peas) will grow the fastest because the seed has more mitochondria and chloroplast to do cellular respiration and photosynthesis thus grow faster. Elliot thinks predicts that the smallest thing will grow the fastest. |
| Experimental Design | 1. Put an equal amount of paper towel in each petri dish (2 dishes per person). Also try and make sure all of the plants are room temperature. 2. Put 5 peas one dish and 5 in the another then do the same for all of the seeds (peas, corn, buckwheat, pearl millet, and alfalfa) Note: each person gets one type of seed. 3. Give each plant 8 ml of water each day for 1 week (give the same temperature water to every seed) 4. Every day measure (in cm) how tall each plant is and see how much it grew compared to the last measurement for 1 weeks 5. At the end of the 1 weeks compare how much each seed/plant grew in that 1 week period. Whichever plant is biggest grew the fastest. |
| Conclusion | Claim lf the seed is middle sized, Then it will germinate the fastest. Evidence l know this because the middle sized (buckwheat) and the second biggest (corn) seeds grew their roots first. The smallest (alfalfa), second smallest (pearl millet), and biggest (peas) seeds grew their roots last. Of the two seeds that grew the roots first, the buckwheat grew to 24 mm in one day. The corn grew to 0.9 mm in one day. Reasoning The medium sized seed grew the fastest because smaller seeds germinate faster most of the time, and buckwheat (middle sized seed) is more like a small seed. Smaller seeds sometimes adapt to germinate faster than other seeds. Smaller seeds are more likely to disperse around a large area. This challenges my prior knowledge because I thought that the bigger seeds would germinate the fastest. It was a fair test because all of the seeds got the same treatment and there wasn’t a bias for a certain size of seed. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Teacher Name | Kristen Stiem |
| School Name | DeWitt Middle School |
| Session | Spring 2021 |