Hi everyone! 

Quinn and Makayla, I really enjoyed reading your insights on factors that could have impacted your study- thank you for sharing! Those all are absolutely great things to keep in mind for limitations or as things to consider in future study designs. 

And thank you everyone for your feedback and appreciation. I have very much enjoyed being a mentor for your project, and I'm so excited for the results you got! GPP for the win 

Dear Ms. Jess

Germination responds: One of the factors that might have impacted our results were

1. We did not compost the GPP.

2. Audrey volunteered to take the plants home and the humidity might have been different.

We think the 1:1 ratio might have had a more sprouts because the GPP was more finely crushed and had more time to compost. 

We had about the same amount of light across all the plants. We did not have any replicates.

Thank you so much for helping us do our planting science project. I had a lot of fun and thank you for answering our questions and making our project easier. 

Thank you so much for helping,

Makayla

Hi Ms. Jes,

I really appreciate you helping us with this project, asking critical questions along the way, and making suggestions that help the overall flow of the project.

Thanks for everything! Goodbye! Have a good thanksgiving!

-Jacob

Thank you for helping us with everything. It helped me and everyone else that you gave us plenty of good questions and things we did not think about for our data. You frequently checked in to make sure we were okay. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Thanks for everything,

Quinn

Thankyou for working with us and giving us your advice, I belive that it was benificial in our project and I am thankful that you were willing to work with us. Thankyou for everything,

Audrey

Hi!

 Growth CER Responses: We think that the seeds liked the 1:1 better because it acted as fertilizer that helped the plants grow. The seeds probably could not grow in the 100% GPP because it did not have enough nutrients in it to let the plant grow, or because we did not compost it. There were most likely no factors that would change the results because they all had the same light level, however the soil's contents could have changed the results slightly. 

Quinn

Hi GPP Team!

It's so exciting to see these results!! Nice job team! I think your hypothesis of the GPP needing time to compost is really interesting- definitely something that could be fun as a future study! Did anything else unexpected happen during your experiment? 

Growth CER: wow! 2.5cm in one day is a lot of growth! I think you have a great case for the 1:1 ratio benefitting growth!

With this in mind, why do you think that those seeds in the 1:1 treatment fared so much better than those in the 100% GPP group? Why might the seeds not prefer that environment? Or, alternatively, were there any other factors that could've prevented them from germinating?

Germination CER: what could be some specific reasons that the seeds seem to prefer to grow in the 1:1 treatment?

Are there any other factors that could have impacted your results? ex, was there consistent light across all samples? could there have been contamination? did you have enough replicates? etc... It's never fun to be critical of your own study, but it's a really important step in the scientific process! Recognizing where your limits are, or things that could've gone better, helps other scientists better understand your study, where there are still gaps in our knowledge, and what future research needs to be done to fill those gaps. 

I'm sad that we will be saying goodbye on Monday, its been so wonderful talking with you and seeing this study develop. 

Talk soon!

Jes

Hi Ms. Jess,

Thank you for your response. We think that the 100% dirt germinated faster because it didn't need to compost. We think that the GPP needed time to compost. The sprouts are looking good.

Growth CER (Claim, Evidence and Reasoning)

Claim: GPP can help speed up the growth of sprouts when used in a 1:1 ratio. (Half dirt half GPP).

Evidence: In the 50% GPP 50% Dirt the sprouts grew the fastest, including one of them that grew 2.5 centimeters in one day. The maximum growth in one day for another seed was 1 centimeter, that's a 1.5-centimeter gap.

Reasoning: The height of a plant indicates its health. The taller a plant is the better condition it's in. Therefore, since these plants grew tall and fast, they were healthy and the GPP benefited them

Germination CER

Claim: 50% Dirt and 50% GPP is the best for germinating buckwheat seeds.

Evidence: 50% Dirt and 50% GPP germinated the highest amount of sprouts (5). While the highest amount of sprouts in one of the other soil mixtures was 2.

Reasoning: More buckwheat seeds will germinate in conditions that they prefer.

Next Monday we are going to say goodbye.

Hi Team GPP! 

How are the sprouts looking? I hope you all have fun long weekend plans :) 

Hi Sophia!

YAY FOR SPROUTS!! That's so exciting!! Fingers crossed that more begin to sprout soon! I think changing the way you water them is a great idea, good thinking. Make sure to write down the date you altered the procedure so we don't forget :) 

Do you have any other thoughts as to why only the buckwheat seeds in 100% dirt sprouted? Do you think it has to do with our GPP variable or something else? Let me know your thoughts!

Fingers crossed for more growth! 

Jes

Hi Ms. Jess,

It was so great to hear back from you. We now finally have some sprouts! It took about a week to sprout but it finally did. We have two buckwheat seeds in 100% dirt. Sadly nothing else has sprouted. We have also changed the way we are watering them. We've decided to just stick the dropper in the dirt and squirt out the water.

We hope to hear from you soon, Sophia 

Hi Jacob! 

It's so great that you have started your experiment, that is very exciting! It sounds like you all did a great job with setting up the experiment and getting things going.  How long do you think it will take them to sprout? 

Jes

Hi Ms. Jes, 

Thank you for your response,

We started our experiment today we collected soil from outside and then used the GPP we could find to get the right percentages. We have decided on watering each of the cups with 5 drops of water per day, not including Saturday and Sunday. In each cup, we planted 3 seeds at the same depth.

Hope we hear from you soon, Jacob.

Hi all! 

Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you! I have been doing tons of my own data entry right now, and I got lost in it!

I really like the model you guys chose with the different quantities of GPP vs dirt - I think you'll get some wicked cool data this way Also, great variable choices for your observations! I think setting up that google slide to put them all in was a great idea. Data management is hard but important, so having a good central spot to keep things in is a perfect start! 

Sorry to hear about the mold and GPP supply issues! It's never fun when there's issues getting a project started, but it's also SO common and normal. I'm glad to hear that you guys are finding ways around it so far! 

I have all my fingers and toes crossed that you're able to get enough in time to plant!! Do you guys have a backup plan just in case?

Let me know however I can help :)

Good luck!!

Jes

We've prepared the containers for the experiment and we're supposed to be planting next week but we've had some GPP supply issues so we might have to plant the week  after next for some GPP for monday, but I'm not sure that we can get it on time to plant.

We all think using GPP is a good idea. We are going to have 4 beakers of dirt. One with full dirt, one with half dirt and half GPP, one with 80% dirt and 20% guinea pig poop, and one with fully GPP. We will spray each beaker with 5 sprays of water every other day. We decided to record how many seeds have sprouted, how tall the plant is, and how healthy the plant is (like appearance and droopiness) every day at 4:00. Our box of GPP slightly molded, so we will try and put it somewhere where it won't mold again. We have a google slide to write our observations in.  

Thanks for the feedback,

Quinn

Hi guys! 

I hope GPP collecting has been going well! Good luck!!! :) 

Talk soon,

Jes