| Explore | Seeds require water, good temperature, and good location. Seeds can become dormant until they have the correct things needed to grow. The first thing that comes out of the seed is the root, or radicle, followed shortly by the stem and leaves. The plant uses these to start photosynthesis and cellular respiration, which is how it will get its energy. When it is a seed, it cannot do photosynthesis but gets its food from the personal storage inside the seed. I know that plants carry out photosynthesis and cellular respiration. The plants have chloroplasts in their leaves that help to absorb the sun’s energy and do photosynthesis. A plant takes in water, sunlight energy, and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Then, the plant produces oxygen and glucose (sugar). For cellular respiration, a plant takes in a food source and oxygen. It then produces carbon dioxide, ATP energy, and water. Also, the mitochondria is the part of the cell that does the cellular respiration. Also, when it’s a seed it is not able to photosynthesise or carry out cellular respiration. It only starts to grow when it has water, a good location, and a good temperature. When it has all of these things, it begins to germinate and grow. After it starts to grow and germinate, and it grows leaves, then it is able to photosynthesize and carry out cellular respiration. Paper towels are so often used for growing plants because they are pathogen-free and you can control the moisture of the towel with little effort, making them ideal for growing plants. It has not been confirmed that either paper towel or cotton has pathogen, but there is a possibility. |
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| Research Question | How does the material a seed grows on affect how tall it grows? (empty, paper towel, notebook paper, fabric, soil) |
| Predictions | If we put seeds on different materials, the one on paper towel will grow the tallest. This is because it absorbs the water better than the other materials while also remaining free of many harmful bacteria. It isn’t confirmed wether or not the other materials often host these bacteria, but they may have traces of them. If the others have pathogen in them, it may cause disease and make our seeds sick. |
| Experimental Design | -Put one piece of paper towel, one disposable mask, one tissue, and one piece of notebook paper into four different petri dishes and leave one petri dish empty (Each of the materials goes into one of the four petri dishes) -Place five Mustard seeds into each of the five petri dishes -Each day, water the seeds in each of the five petri dishes five-ten milliliters of water -Each day, measure the height of the seeds in each petri dish and calculate the average height of the plant in each petri dish using a millimeters ruler -Place the lids of the petri dishes back on -Put the petri dishes in the cabinet |
| Conclusion | Claim: If we put seeds on different materials, (none, mask, notebook paper, tissue, paper towel) then the one on notebook paper will grow the most. Evidence: In this investigation, we put different seeds on different materials to grow. The ones on notebook paper grew significantly taller than the others, giving us an average of 105 mm per seed. The ones on the other materials ranged from 44 to 64 mm per seed. This means that there is an average of 51mm between the heights of the seeds on their final day of growingReasoning: The reason these unexpected results occurred was because of the amount of absorption the material has. Plants need water to create food and food is needed for survival. While underwatering can lead to permanent damage to the plant, so can overwatering. Overwatering can make it harder for a seed to access helpful oxygen, and it can also cause the roots to rot. Rotting roots can cause the secondary roots on the plant to die, and because the secondary roots are what absorb water, the plant cant take in any water. The notebook paper likely absorbed the best amount of water, but also left enough for the seeds to be able to survive and grow. Evaluation: What surprised you, either during your investigation or about your final results? The final results surprised me. My entire group and I all thought that the seeds growing on the paper towel would do the best and grow to be the tallest plants, but they actually ended up doing the second worst. What could be an alternative explanation for your results? (What other things could explain the results from your experiment?) An alternative explanation for my results could be that when my group and I went to put away the petri dishes with all of our seeds in them into the cabinet, we stacked them up on top of each other. Doing this may have caused the seeds to get different amounts of light. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Teacher Name | Kristen Stiem |
| School Name | DeWitt Middle School |
| Session | Spring 2022 |
| About this Project | This group had an interesting and surprising experiment! They took to heart advice given from their mentor, and the students and mentor had excellent online communication. Their experiment had surprising findings and led to more questions that the students are excited to explore. They did a great job overall, worked hard, were very invested in their project, stayed curious, and had a positive attitude throughout. |