Hello, 

I could not thank you enough for your effort, advice and experience. It was very useful and helpful in improving our experiment. I am honored that we could have such an amazing scientist that took time out of their day and used their expertise to help collaborate with us to make our experiment better. Thank you again.

I would like to thank you as well for helping us improve and giving great advice so our experiment could be successful! Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions!

I would also like to thank you so much for helping us with this experiment. You were always quick to answering our questions and having your expertise made our project go by much smoother. Thanks again for all of your help! 

We finished the data and orignally struggled to process the data statistcally using ANOVA using averages. Instead, we took all of the measurements from the last day only and found that we could reject the null hypothesis and that all the data was statisticaly significant. I am going to add our formal conclusion along with our finished poster.  We used a line graph to display our height data and a bar graph to display our percent survival rate. For percent survival rate, because we thinned out the control group once they got too long, we only took data for day 18 because the data would have been skewed from thinning the plants out. 

Hey all!

I imagine you are on break this week, but I'm looking forward to seeing your data analysis. What kinds of graphs do you think would be good to display your data?

Experiment Day 28 11/14/16

Today we are completely done with measure the height of all the plants. We started to get out the control, no salt, plants and all but the mutant plants in 150 millimolar of salt for measuring biomass. Due to the roots being too fine,  we are only measuring the biomass of the stems. We are waiting to confirm with our scientist if we should dry out the plants of Saturday and measure the biomass as we are unsure if we need that data as well. We did get the plants out and place them in envelopes to have them gradually dry.

Experiment Day 30  11/16/16

we finished collecting height data and we decided to not measure biomass as our scientist believes it might not be needed, and she suggested to maybe have percent germination or survival percentage. We decided to do survival percentage of the plants to help clearly illustrate our data. We also had to fix the rounding of averages in our height data to the tenths place instead so it is easier to interprete the data. 

If you think one of your other measurements will show clear differences, don't make your life harder by collecting extra data! I think that is one of the most important lessons you can learn as a scientist :)

Since so many of your high salt plants died, I think one of the ways you can compare all your treatments might be % germination and days of survival. Can you think of any others?

Also we are only doing the biomass for the no salt plants and all the plants, expect the mutant( because there was nothing to measure), the in 150 millimolar of salt.

Hey so we finished with collecting the height data, but we are unsure if we should still do biomass as all the plants look different enough for good data analysis. We started pulling out the plants, but the roots were to small to pull out, so we were going to start measuring the biomass of the stems and leaves only. We have not started the drying process yet, but we would like to know if we should get this data too.

Experiment Day 24

Today we finished measuring the control group. We had started measuring the plants on Day 21, but did not have enough time to finish measuring or recording. Thing are about the same in the high salt environment. No plants are living. The low salt environment also proves to be too much for the plants as only a few plants in the Landsberg and Columbia strains are surviving and green , and there are no plants left in the mutant pots. The controlhave grown very rapidly and are so tall we removed the top of the container. As for the fungus, we noticed it in the High salt environment as well as the low salt environment. we believe the mod grew because of an excess of water combined with the decomposing of the plants. The fungus helped break down the dying plants which couldn't survive the salted environment. 

Experiment Day 24

Today we finished measuring the control group. We had started measuring the plants on Day 21, but did not have enough time to finish measuring or recording. Thing are about the same in the high salt environment. No plants are living. The low salt environment also proves to be too much for the plants as only a few plants in the Landsberg and Columbia strains are surviving and green , and there are no plants left in the mutant pots. The controlhave grown very rapidly and are so tall we removed the top of the container. As for the fungus, we noticed it in the High salt environment as well as the low salt environment. we believe the mod grew because of an excess of water combined with the decomposing of the plants. The fungus helped break down the dying plants which couldn't survive the salted environment. 

Nice data! Did you note which containers the fungus is growing in? Do you have any ideas why?

Experiment Day 13  OBSERVATIONS FOR Oct. 31
We did a normal measuring day. All strains of plants in the 300 millimolar solution appear dead; they are brown and withered. The salt sensitive mutant strain in the low salt also appeared to be dead because they were brown and withered. In the low salt the Columbia and Landsberg plants appeared to be around the same heights. All of our plants in the control are green, growing, and thriving. We watered today, but we are planning on leaving them dry the next time.

Experiment Day 18 11/4/16
Another measuring day. The plants were left in dry conditions to prevent over saturation. Plants in the control set are continuing to thrive, with a noticeable difference in height, with the Landsberg being the tallest. In the low salt, the mutant still has not grown and some plants appear to be purple. The Columbia and Landsberg are growing but are much farther behind than the control plants in terms of growth stages. The high salt has killed most of the plants, and the ones still there are not growing. There is evidence of fungal activity. We watered the plants again. Also we thinned out the control plants to about three plants per pot to combat competition between plants. We also were able to notice differences between trichome growth in the control plants(Landsberg and Columbia have them while mutant does not). We will watch this in our salt solutions from now on.

Good call on making sure the plants don't get too salty! I hope they're still doing ok. Looking forward to hearing more progress!

Sorry we uploaded  the wrong data charts we will add the new ones. 

Also we are going to update you on our daily experiment work through the updates since files is hard to update regularly:

Experiment Day 610/24/16
All plants have germinated and we started to water the plants with the appropriate water solution. We watered 15ml for each plant, then we added additional amount of water in each of the trays. We also started to measure the shoot length of all of the plants that have sprouted.

Experiment Day 7 10/25/16
Although we didn't measure today there was a slight difference in growth, we noticed the Control plants and low salt plants seemed to continue to grow whereas the high salt plants’ growth seemed to be stunted. We also made more salt solution to store away for the next time we may need it. The  solutions are 300 millimolar (17.5 grams of salt per liter) and 150 millimolar (8.7 grams per liter). 

Experiment Day 9 10/27/16
Today we measured the plants again. We have found that the No salt plants have grown and developed much more than the low salt plants, and the high salt plants seemed to not grow at all. The high salt even seemed to be slightly discolored. We ran into a problem with evaporation. The water evaporated from the tray but the salt crystals were left behind. We were worried about adding salty water to already salty trays, se we decided to rinse out the salt from the bottom of the tray. After rinsing out the salt, we added more water to the plants. We also pre made some more solution for the next time that we need to water the plants. 

Great! I don't see anything in the data sheet yet... maybe you just haven't uploaded the most recent one? Also, I am not sure I understand how the data sheet is set up--maybe some titles and more labels would help me know what the three different pages are for.

Hey so we updated our experiment journal as well as added height numbers  in our data chart. We are measureing in millimeters.

Fantastic work!

For your watering question, I think 35 mL will probably be plenty, although you can always adjust if it seems like it is not working (just remember to change for all treatments!).

Just to let you know, I am traveling to Sweden this week for research. I am excited to see some reindeer and the Northern lights! As a result, I might be a little delayed in my responses, but I'll do my best!

Uploaded new pictures. all seeds are in and plants are getting ready for germination  by being cold treated!!!

Hi! I uploaded our official proposal into files so you could take a look to see if everything looks good. We were also wanting some confirmation on how much water we should give the plants each day. We were planning on water the plant with 35ml of water every other day, does this sound like it would be able to sustain the plant without overwater?

Hello, no we did not make our solutions yet, but we started on the set-up. I added some pictures of each set-up chamber for our lab. We are also planning to use 17.532 grams of salt for one liter of 300 millimolar solution and 8.766 grams of salt for one liter of 150 millimolar solution.

Hey all!

Just checking in on how you are doing! Have you made your salt solutions yet?

That looks right to me! Here is a source if you want to remind yourselves how to do the calculations: http://www.chemteam.info/Mole/Moles-to-Grams.html

Looking forward to your next updates!

Hello, we are having troubles with molar concentration calculates actually, so we went to a calculator and we calculated a one liter, 300 millimolar and got 17.532 mass or grams of NaCl. We are not sure if this is correct so if you can give us your input on that.

Alright, thank you for the information! Also we are trying to answer the question on how would salt affect the growth rate of the plants seeing which genotype would be more apapt to live in soil with high levels of salt. Plus, I believe we do know how to calculate molar concentrations, if your referring to morality calculations. Also we believe that the wild type Columbia would do the best as the other two seem more susceptible to salt levels and have a higher impact from salt levels. 

Hey all!

Go team! This looks like a great start! Here are my initial thoughts--

For transpiration, an "easy" way to measure it is to put plastic bags over the plants. You would weigh the plastic bag beforehand, put it on the plant for a fixed time period, and then weigh it afterward. The difference in those numbers would give you the amount of water transpired in that period, which you could convert into a rate using the amount of time you bagged the plants.

As for salt concentrations, the articles I looked at went up to ~300 millimolar. Do you all know how to calculate molar concentrations?

I am not entirely sure what your specific question/hypotheses are. Do you want to know the effect of salt on growth rate? Survival? Transpiration? Which variety do you think will do the best? Worst?

If your goal is to measure growth rate, height of the shoot and length of the root are good places to start. You can also count leaves and weigh your plants at the end of the experiment to see how much biomass they produce. If you're interested in salt's ability to impact water uptake, you can harvest the plants, weigh them, then dry them for a few days and weigh them again to see how much of their mass came from water.

Hopefully that gives you some good things to think about!

Hi Julie! My name is Vicky and as Liz has mentioned I'm a sophomore. My favorite subject in school is AP European History. My favorite thing in school is being able to communicate and meet with new people. And one last thing, do you have any advice on salt concentration in water. We know that our plant is sensitive to salt and we want an amount where it's hard on the plant, but is still able to germinate. 

Hi Julie!

Im Grace I am really interested in science and math, specifically statistics.  I don't have a specific favorite plant, but I am beginning to appreciate Arabidopsis thaliana after all the research that I have done! Speaking of research, I have uploaded into files our raw research and journals as well as the simplified overview presentation of our experiement. After reviewing our experimental set up, we were wondering if you have any suggestions for other dependent variables we could measure. We were also wondering if there was an easy way for us to measure transpiration rates in our plants as another dependent variable. Any other suggestions are welcome too!! 

Hi team! My name is Julie, and I'm going to be your mentor for this project! I am a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I work on understanding how plants evolve to defend themselves against insects that want to each them. My favorite plant is Mimosa pudica, which is super cool because it curls up in response to being touched as a defense mechanism! Here is a video showing it doing its thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc Do you all have a favorite plant, or a favorite thing about school?

I am so excited to work with you! I heard you have started working on your project. Can you tell me a little about what you have done so far?