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GLCPS Cost Team 1

Project by group glcpscostfall2016project

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Explore Work on this next!
What do we know about plants from our experiences outside of school? What have we discovered in class and background research? What questions about plants interest us?
Research Question What do we want to test or study? How did we come up with the question(s). How does the question fit what we know about the topic?
Predictions What are the possible outcomes of our study given the variables we are working with? What is our explanation for why and how we think this will happen?
Experimental Design What is our plan? Be sure to include enough detail that another group can replicate our experiment. What variables will we test? What variables will we measure and observe? What variables will we keep constant? How will we record our data?
Conclusion What claim can we make from our experiment? What are possible explanations for our results? How do the data we collected and our reasoning with scientific ideas support our claim? What future experiments could be done to expand on the results of this experiment?
About this Project

Updates

Get to know your team’s scientist mentor, who will encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. The more you share your ideas and research info, the more your mentor can help. You may also hear from a scientist mentor liaison who will be helping all the teams in your class.
PlantingScience Staff
has been updated by administrator
Monica Borghi
said

Dear Jade, Sierra, Quinn and Bailey,

It has been a pleasure working with you.
I hope our roads will cross again in the future. 
Good luck with your studies!

Monica

Jade
said

Thank you for helping us with our plants, it was fun. 

Sierra
said

Hi Monica, I am really glad that I got to get to know you. Thank you for helping me understand more about plants and answering my question. I had a great time meeting you via skype. I hope we get the chance to meet with you again. Thank you so much!   

Quinn
said

Thank you for helping us on this project and helping us understand all of our questions we had. It's been fun 

Quinn
said

Thank you for helping us on this project and helping us understand all of our questions we had. It's been fun 

Bailey
said

We are starting a new project but this one was fun, I am glad you helped us. Goodbye :)

Bailey
said

After a five day weekend only one of our plants survived. The seed that was in the dark and had water survived and the others dried out

    Monica Borghi
    said

    Well, we were expecting all the plants without H2O to be dead by now. So, it went well.  

    As for the plants with H2O, I was expecting the plants in the light to be more healthy than those in the dark. What happened, I think, is that the heat produced by the light may have helped to dry out the H2O much faster than in absence of light. You used tin foil to make dark right? Because aluminum foil reflects light and heat, it could be that the plants in the dark survived simply because they had water.

    Does this make sense to you? 

Monica Borghi
said

Hi Bailey, Jade, Quinn, and Sierra,


as you are noticing H2O is essential for seeds to germinate and for plants to grow.

H2O softens the seed coat, penetrates inside the seeds and activates the enzymes that convert the seeds' reserves (sugars, lipids, and proteins) into energy, which is finally used by the embryo to grow. Alias, seeds come out of dormancy and germinate.

As the seedlings (= small plants that sprout from seeds) start to grow, they do need light and H2O. Why?

Do seeds without water will ever germinate?
In germplasm collections seeds are stored at low temperature and very dry conditions to prevent germination and increase seed longevity.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_drori_why_we_re_storing_billions_of_seeds?language=en

In other words, I doubt seeds without water will ever germinate unless there is enough humidity in the air around them and the temperature is sufficiently high to allow enzymatic activity.

 

How do plants without H2O do? They die, it's just matter of time
Any exception? resurrection plants!

How do plants with H2O/without light perform? The word "etiolated" means anything to you?

 

Cheers :)

Monica

 

 

 

Sierra
said

Hi Monica, we have been working on our plant experiments and they are doing great! We have noticed that the two cups with water (Cups a and b) had a large amount of growth. This is because these two cups had water in them. Thanks to our conversation about a week ago we learned that water is an essential part of plant growth. Will the other plants without water ever grow?  

Jade
said

Over the weekend we watered A and B, A is in the light and B is not in the light. Coming to class today we saw that A was dry and B we wet still because B was not in the light. A and B also both grew. 

Bailey
said

we left two of our four seeds over the weekend with water and one of the two without light and we noticed that the seed with water and no light grew more than the one with light and water and the other two without water and one of those two without light didnt grow at all

Quinn
said

With our plant project only two of our seeds are growing and two still haven't  started to grow yet. The ones we are watering are the ones that began to grow. One has light and one doesn't have light. The other two plants do not get water and haven't grown 

Monica Borghi
said

Hi Bailey, Jade, Quinn, and Sierra,

it has been a pleasure to "virtually" meeting you all.

I hope you can enjoy science. Honestly, it takes time in the beginning because of that steep learning curve.
But if you have the perseverance to overcome those initial difficulties then it becomes a challenge with yourself only. 

Cheers,
Monica

Jade
said

Thank you so much for talking to us today, we really appreciate it!

Bailey
said

Thank you for talking with us its a privilege to talk to a real scientist and have you help us :)

Quinn
said

Thank you for video chatting us and giving us input on our lab and helping with how we got our results. I understand more about our lab and everything that is going on.

Sierra
said

Hi Monica! Had a great time meeting you today! Thank you for answering our questions and I hope we can video chat again another time!

Sierra
said

Hi Monica! I saw your photo in the files section and you were right, it does look really cool! Today we checked on some radish seeds that had been put under lights in plastic bags with damp cotton balls. It has been about 3 days since we started growing the seeds. some of us put our seeds in the light and some put them in the dark. My seeds, like I said were in the light. They grew way more than I expected. I had three seeds and two of them had long roots and small leaves that had fully come out of the shell. Today in class we all put them back on the scale to weigh them but ran out of time before we could get any final data. Tomorrow we will go back to  the University we visited Wednesday to do a sickle cell lab. 

    Monica Borghi
    said

    Have fun at the University!  I guess we will be in touch again when you're all back to regular school hours. 

    Keep me updated with your activities!

    Monica 

Monica Borghi
uploaded Root stained with Fluorol Yellow 088.pdf in project files
    Monica Borghi
    said

    Hi again. I just noticed that the root was not visible after I copied/pasted. So I made a little PDF file.

    Can you see it now?

    Monica

Monica Borghi
said

Good morning Students!

It looks like you're learning a lot about macromolecules and how to detect them! You must have a lot of fun!

Have you tried to color beans? I wonder if they have more or fewer proteins than the salmon....

For my experiments, I have used a dye similar to Sudan IV  for lipids. But mine was called Fluorol Yellow 088. I used Fluorol Yellow 088 to stain suberin. Suberin is the bark of the oat tree and it is used to make bottle stoppers and coasters. Suberin is very high in lipids and it works as a rain coat for plants, so they do not loose water. For my experiments, I stained suberin from plant roots, which also have a lot of it.

I'm uploading a photo so you can see it. I think it is very cool this little glowing root. I first stained the root and then took a photograph under the microscope. Do you like it?

 


 

 

 

Sierra
said

Hi Monica for the food experiment we used Benedict's Reagent for carbohydrates (sugar), Iodine for the carbohydrates (starch), Biuret Reagent for protein, and Sudan IV for protein. When tested on the foods (potatoes, Orange Juice, Almonds, Eggs, Salmon, and Milk) each food changed color depending on if it had a positive or negative reaction. We found out that potatoes have starch, Orange Juice has sugar, Almonds have protein and lipids, eggs have protein and lipid, Salmon has protein and lipids and lastly milk has sugar, protein and lipids.  

Monica Borghi
said

Hello Students!

I have heard that you're very busy running experiments and learning about macromolecules!


Quinn, do you remember the name of the chemical that you and Sierra used for the experiment with food? 
I'm curious to know more!

Monica 

 

PS: have fun at the College lab!

Quinn
said

Today Sierra and I did an online lab on different macromolecules and how they are tested with water and a chemical. For each chemical the water would change a different color. Later we used the colors we recorded down to see what different types of macromolecules are in foods. 

Bailey
said

We are doing labs at a college facility so we will be in and out of communication for the week

Monica Borghi
said

Hello, Bailey, Quinn, Sierra, and Jade!

As Bailey said, it could be that the experiment with the foliar disks did not go as expected because - maybe - some disks had veins and some other not. Or maybe the vacuum to remove the air inside the leaves worked better for some disks than for others.
But in the end, you learned that it is very important to try to be as consistent as possible, which means taking samples very very similar to each other. And no floatation with the disks made from brown old leaves was a positive result!

Now on macromolecules and proteins.

The way I think of proteins is like Lego bricks. The Lego bricks attach to one another only if the heads of one brick are in line and fit into the holes of the brick that you try to put on top. I call these structures HEADS and TAILS of the Lego bricks.


Proteins are made of amino acids that can be compared to Lego bricks. Each amino acid is made of a head called AMINO GROUP (N) and a tail called CARBOXYL GROUP (C), and they attach only in this order: carboxyl-amino-carboxyl-amino-carboxyl-amino, so that all the proteins start with an amino group and ends with a carboxyl group. Like this: [N-C][N-C][N-C][N-C]. The first N and the last C are free. Simple right?


Now, can you think of what people use bricks for? People use bricks to build STRUCTURES like houses and bridges and fences. Proteins are the same, and in fact, many proteins are called STRUCTURAL. The structural proteins are those that make for example the structure of our skin.

With a bag of lego bricks, we can do almost everything. We can for example make a boat to transport merchandise (TRANSPORTER protein), we can make a lighthouse and send signals out to the boats in the ocean (signaling proteins like HORMONES). I do not know if we can make ENZYMES with lego bricks, so you have to memorize that enzymes are also proteins.

Let me know if you need help with the homework on macromolecules.

Ciao!
Monica

Bailey
said

We had a homework packet with more macromolecules, the chemistry of carbon,chemical reactions, energy in reactions, and enzymes. 

Jade
said

In class today we reviewed macromolecules so I better understand and remember the structure of the macromolecules. 

Sierra
said

Hi Monica! Today we had a review on macromolecules to get a better handle on the topic because they are actually kind of confusing. We are also having a quiz on enzymes tomorrow. 

I know that enzymes are proteins but that pretty much all I can remember. Do you have any tricks to remember more about them? 

Quinn
said

We did a review on macromolecules today to stay in check. I figured out that if it is a protein needs to have nitrogen. 

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Bailey
said

We tried to avoid veins and keep a consistent pattern. It might have been because we did it wrong

Monica Borghi
said

Hi Quinn, Bailey, Jade, and Sierra,

Great that you started with the experiments!
Now, let's see if we can sort out what happened in those cups.

The description of the experiment that Sierra provided is a good example of how to write the "research method". Well done Sierra! One thing to add is the description of the "material" that was used. In other words, which leaves were used and how were the leaf disks taken. Now, were the disks taken randomly all throughout  the leaf? Were some disks taken from the veins of the leaf? and were the disks used for the experiment in the light similar to the disks used for the experiment in the dark? Have you noticed whether the disks taken from different part of the leaf had a particular floatation pattern? could this be the reason why the flotation did not go as expected?

On the flotation test, the results are a bit confusing. To make a conclusion, we need to know exactly how many disks floated in the dark, how many in the light and how many disks in total were tested. I suggest making two tables, one for the light and one for the dark condition. Each with three columns, then write in the first column the total number of disks you are going to test, in the second column how many disks floated and in the third column how many disks did not float. Start from the same number of disks in the dark and in the light, so we can make good comparisons!

Finally, Jade provided an important information: some leaves were brown and some were green. Very good observation! And she also said that the disks from the brown leaf did not float. Was the brown leaf old? can we guess why no flotation was observed with this leaf?


Go Team! I can't wait for more experiments!

Monica 

 

Sierra
said

Good afternoon, we have finished our first experiment! We tested photosynthesis and respiration by cutting out discs from leaves with a hole punch and putting them in a soap solution. We put half of them in a cup under a light and the other half in a cup with tinfoil over it so it would be in darkness. We then timed them to see how many would float in each. The results were supposed to be more floating in the light cup but our results had more floating in the dark cup. I was wondering what you think we did wrong? Why did this happen? How could we change what we did?    

Jade
said

We have done two experiments so far, one with a green leaf and the second with a brown leaf. While doing the experiment with the brown leaf did not float, not in the light nor the dark. 

Quinn
said

The first time we did the experiment our data for the leaf didn't really change. The one in the light didn't float for the time we had to test the experiment and the leaf in the dark some floated but none sank or floated from start to end. 

Bailey
said

Did the light have anything to do with why the leafs weren't changing when we put them under a lamp for our lab where we cut leafs and put them in water where one cup was lit and the other wasn't. The leafs just floated and didn't sink

 

Bailey
said

My favorite plant is a cactus or desert bushes. I would prefer more trees because the shade and shadows of the leaves look nice. we learnt about lipids, nucleic acids, proteins, and carbohydrates. we learnt about the elements and ratios and the structure and function.  

Sierra
said

In class we are working on macromolecules. We are looking at structure, function and finding examples. 
My favorite type of plants are cactus and succulents, I like them because they are easy to care of I would also love to have more trees in my city because there are becoming more sparse.     

Jade
said

My favorite flower is a sunflower because they are big and yellow. Yes i would like more trees because why not. The more trees the better. In class we learned about proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids. We learned about the functions and the structures of them.

Quinn
said

My favorite type of plants are like cactuses and other ones like that. I also like trees so more in our city would be nice. We learned about Carbohydrates, Lipids, Nucleic Acids, and Proteins and made a foldable with their structure and how they work. 

Monica Borghi
said

Hello Quinn, Bailey, Jade, and Sierra,

I'm very happy to meet all of you!

To get started, my name is Monica and you can call me Monica if you like. Or plant scientist if you prefer. Whatever is easier for you. 

I was born in Italy, but because of my passion for plant science I traveled a lot and did research in many Universities all around the world.
In Italy, I lived in Ferrara, a small town in the North of "the boot". Do you know why I call Italy "the boot"? 
I also lived in Pisa - the city of the leaning tower. Has anyone seen a picture of the leaning tower? 
Then, I moved to the USA. I lived for three years in Indiana and for four years in North Carolina. I also lived in Tokyo (Japan) for one year.
Last year I moved back to Europe, and I now work in the Netherlands. 
I travelled a lot because I studied and worked in many different Universities. A good thing about working in science is that you have the opportunity to travel a lot, meet new people and make friends from all over the world. My friends are Americans, Indians, Japanese, Chines, Brazilians, Spanish, Dutch and more. This is cool, isn't it? 
What about you? where you and your friends are from? 

As for the languages, I speak Italian, English, and French. 

I studied science in school as you are doing right now, and then I continued in high school up to the University and beyond. As a scientist, I read and learn new things every day. Another great thing about science is that scientists never  get bored because we do and learn something new every day. 

I do not have any pets now, but I had a German shepherd a few years ago. Her name was "Diana", but I used to call her "Biri" which is pronounced "Bee-Ree". Which one do you prefer? Biri or Diana? 

My favorite color.... I really don't know. I think I like all the colors of the rainbow!

Hobbies: I swim and run. 

Now my turn! I'm also curious about you.

Do you have a favorite flower or a plant or a tree?
And what do you like about it?
Would you like to have more trees in your city or do you prefer less trees?

This week in science class you learned about macromolecules. What did you learn about? and which macromolecules in particular? do you know who makes those molecules? 


Talk to you soon!
Monica

Nathaniel John Frein
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Quinn
said

Hi my name is Quinn, This week in science we learned about macromolecules does that have anything to do with plants? I also have some other questions for you. Why did you go into a science career/path? Do you enjoy doing it? What's your favorite part about science?

Bailey
said

hello my name is Bailey and some questions i have for you. How long have you been a scientist? where have you traveled? How many years of schooling have you had to get a degree?

Jade
said

Hello my name is Jade, and I would like to ask you a few questions. What would you prefer us to call you? How old are you? What college did you go to? How long have you been studying science?

Sierra
said

Hello, I'm Sierra! I am really excited to get to know you!

I was wondering if I could get to know you better. 

What would you prefer to be called?

How long have you been studying science? 

Where are you from? 

How old are you? 

What languages do you speak? 

Hobbies? 

Do you have any pets? 

What is your favorite song? 

What is your favorite color? 

Favorite movies?

 

Jade
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Quinn
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Bailey
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