| Explore | We know that plants need nutrients to survive such as water and sugar. We discovered that plants need minerals like copper and calcium to help them grow. Questions about how calcium and copper affect the growth of plants and how much of each mineral is needed interest us. |
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| Research Question | Our question is: will calcium nitrate affect plant growth? The agronomist spoke about the kinds of nutrients plants need and calcium nitrate was one of them. The questions fit what we know because we know its a needed mineral. |
| Predictions | Possible outcomes of our study include discoloration of the leaves, an increase/decrease in plant growth and strength of stalks. Our explanation for why we think this will happen is that calcium nitrate helps different components of plant growth and structure, depending on how much is absorbed. |
| Experimental Design | Our plan is to spray 5 plants of the same species with varying amounts of our calcium nitrate mixture. One plant will be our control, receiving no calcium nitrate. We will later compare this to the plants that did receive the mixture. We will dilute some of the mixture and put the different concentrations into four spray bottles. We will then spray each plant with their designated spray bottle, and observe the differences between them. We will record our data by describing the appearances of the leaves and the changes they experience. We are testing the amount of calcium nitrate (our independent variable) that each plant receives. |
| Conclusion | We accept our hypothesis, as the concentration of calcium nitrate did effect plant growth. We found that there was a sweet spot for the calcium mixture (25% and 12.5%). These plants had stronger stems, greener leaves, and a larger leaf size. When there was too high or too low of a concentration, the plants were negatively affected; yellow leaves, limp stems, and less leaf growth. Another thing we learned is that qualitative data is harder to agree upon as a group than quantitative data. For future experimentation, we could decrease the range between the ideal concentrations (25% and 12.5%) to determine the minimum amount of concentration needed to have a positive effect on the plants (using a range like 5% to 10%). We would use more plants for this experiment to narrow down the concentrations to a specific amount. |
| Investigation Theme | AFW |
| Grade Level | High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12) |
| Teacher Name | Carrie Bradley |
| School Name | Lincolnton High School |
| Session | Spring 2022 |