Info
| Explore | Here on earth, plants and seeds are some of the top needs for survival of life. Seeds are not only edible, like soybean and sunflower seeds, but they also help plants reproduce and grow more. If we did not have them, plants wouldn’t be able to keep growing, and they would eventually die. Seeds... |
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| Research Question | How do different pH levels affect seed growth? |
| Predictions | We think that if we water the plants with higher pH levels it will slow down the plant growth. If the plant is water with water of a lower pH level, the growth of the plant will quicken, or not be affected. |
| Experimental Design | Soak soybeans in tap water (7pH) for 12 hours. Spread the seeds out evenly between 4 groups. Each group will be watered with water that has different levels of pH (7.00, 9.18, 4.000). Every Friday, measure the growth of the stem. We want to see which group of seeds grow the most,... |
| Conclusion | Our prediction was incorrect, the plants with the lower level of PH (4.00) grew better than the plants with higher PH (9.18), but the plants that grew the best were our control that we watered with tap water (7.00 PH). One theory that we have about why the plants watered with more acidic water... |
| About this Project |
This team worked very well together, cooperating on all parts of the project, each person contributing with excitement and effort from beginning to end. They responded well to suggestions and help from their mentor and teacher, and also took the initiative, by adding their own great ideas to... |
Updates
As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.
Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.
Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Project Gallery anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Gallery by key word, team name, topic, or school name.
Good bye for now.
Warm regards,
The PlantingScience team
Hey Swadhin!
I made a line graph for you below!
Thanks,
Thijs
Hi Everyone,
If you will connect those dots in the scatter plot it would be more interactive. What you have measured here is the length of the hypocotyl. So, more appropriately you have measures the growth of the seedling under different pH condition. You may label the Y-axis as the length of the hypocotyl. The whole purpose of doing the experiment is to falsify your own hypothesis and unravel the real phenomena. I am glad that within this short time you all have made it to a conclusion and found that pH 7.0 is the appropriate pH for seedling growth and changing the pH value to higher (pH 9.18) or lower (pH 4.0) severely reduces seedling growth. So, pH is an important factor for plant growth and it is true for other living organisms. If we mess up the water bodies around us with the pollutant, that will change the pH and have serious consequences not only on plants growing in that condition but also other living organisms growing in that ecosystem. I hope you all now learn the larger message from this small but very important experiment.
My research primarily focused on two aspects of plant development. First, the effect of a transcription factor on seed germination and second, mechanism of light perception by the plant. The importance of my research is to understand the basic mechanism that governs these developmental processes. The knowledge gained from this research can be implicated to crop improvement in the future. I have attached an example data from the seed germination experiments. I would be happy to discuss more if you have any question.
Thanks All and Good Luck!
Swadhin
Hey Swadhin!
It was amazing to work with you this couple of weeks! You do a great job of educating us and you really helped out when making this project! I'm really interested in the science you do, and it would be awesome to learn more about your research! I am really thankful for you, and planting science, because I had a great time working on this experiment, and learning and answering our question, "How does the pH of water affect the growth of seeds?". Sadly, our project is ending, and we will not be able to continue for much longer. If you have any questions or if you can tell me a bit more about your research, I'll stick around! Thank you for being an amazing mentor and helping us with our project!
Thanks so much!
Team Ten: Thijs, Shana, Elizabeth, and Ryleigh.
:)
Hi Elizabeth, Ryleigh, Shana, and Thijs,
The slides reflect that you all have done a great job with the help of your teacher. Thanks, everyone for your effort and making this project a success. I am glad that I got an opportunity to work with you. I requested the access for the data table and scatter plot. If you received my request please give me the access, or upload that into group files in planting science website. Alternatively, take a screenshot of those files and paste them to your PPT slides.
Goodluck!
Swadhin
Hey Swadhin!
Which files do you need a copy of? Is it the google drive links to the data collection? I'll upload them.
It’s great to see that teams from your school are wrapping up and posting conclusions. Enjoy the final stages of your project, and feel free to post any final comments or questions you have for your mentors.
Hey Swadhin!
I'll just upload the powerpoint file here.
Hey Swadhin!
Do you have a google account we could share the slides with you on?
Thanks,
Thijs
Hey Swadhin!
We have just started analyzing our data, and we will be making charts and writing our conclusion! We are currently working on a google slides showing our entire experiment, and when we're done, you can check it out! I'm also going to be attaching some files and pictures to this project so you can see what we found.
Thanks!
Thijs
Hey Swadhin!
Today is the last day for data collection! We are measuring the plant height and the number of leaves. We also collect other data, like other interesting things or observations of the plants. We actually have these amazing journals where we made graphs of the inside of seeds! We even got to dissect them! The stem is called the Hypocotyl, and the organ is called the Plumule. I actually did have an explanation for the seeds failing in 9.13. I also learned that the higher base the water is, the more saline content it has, or mineral. I know salt kills plants, so that could by why.
Thanks!
Thijs
Hi Everyone,
Great effort! Could you please post your observation for all the condition you tested? Also, summarize those data and draw a conclusion. The conclusion will guide us to accept or reject our original hypothesis.
Congratulation to all of You!
Wish You All The Best
Swadhin
Hello Swadhin
Our plants have started to grow!!! We have noticed that the plants that are watered with regular water (7pH) and 4.00 pH levels are growing better than the plants watered with 9.18 pH levels. We think that the plants watered with more acidity grow faster than the plants watered with more basic water. The picture we sent represents a seed germinating.
Elizabeth, Ryleigh, Shana, Thijs
Hi Everyone,
The picture looks great. How do you making the comparison? Are you doing any measurement or just taking only visual observation? Can anyone of you tell what is the stem and the organ at the top of the stem are called? If you don't know please do a google search. Do you have any explanation why the soybean seeds did not perform well germination in pH9.3? What could be the possible reasons?
Swadhin
Hey Swadhin!
I took a picture of our first germinating seed! This shows that we are doing the right thing and using the correct amount of water! We watered it with 9ml with water, so now we know that it is a good amount of water to use! We now have a 3cm plant growing, as well as many others! Looking forward to what we find in the end!
Thanks,
Thijs
Hi Thijs,
Great work! Could you please explain in a few words what I am looking at and what we learn from this observation?
Swadhin
Hello Swadhin,
Yesterday we watered our seeds with 6ml of water. Today we watered our seeds with 9ml of water because the seeds were taking a while to germinate. We had another cup with extra seeds (not part of the project) and many of those seeds were germinating. I think they were growing more, because they were watered with more water. We are using pH buffer powder, usually used for fish tanks.
Hi Elizabeth, Shana, Ryleigh, and Thijs,
I am glad to hear that the experiment is going as planned. It is a great way of learning things doing by yourself. Most of the time the real experiment exactly goes as you are experiencing with your experiment. Every time I plan some experiment, I used to run a series of control experiments to know everything working as expected, otherwise, troubleshoot the things which are not working. Also, I used to construct the virtual result while planning the experiment. I would suggest you draw the picture of seed growth and label the different parts, and specify which parts you are going to measure. Can you imagine how those parts are going to look like under different pH level?
Best
Swadhin
There are 4 cups in each group (3 groups total) and each cup has 2 seeds. (8 seeds total in each group.) Is that enough to have an accurate measurement? We will be measuring the height of them stem.
Today my group started our project. We have three groups, each group has 4 cups (2 seeds in each cup) We watered each group with water that had different PH levels. We are going to check them next week, on Thursday to check on the growth of the soybeans.
Hi Elizabeth, Shana, Ryleigh, and Thijs,
It is exciting to hear that you have started the experiment. Lets the fun begin. I got your point that you are using water with different pH level to grow the soybeans. Can you guess if the pH is low or high what would be the nature of the water? It is not clear to me what powder you are adding into the water to change its pH level.
You said you are going to measure the growth of the soybean. Could you please explain in more detail what exactly you will measure? In other words which part of the little seedlings you are going to measure. You also can take pictures of those seedlings.
Using two seeds in one cup is not enough for the experiment. These are biological material and all may not behave (e.g geminate/grow) in the same way. Let's say one seed did not germinate and one germinate late. So how do you compare that to other groups that germinate/grow well? The best practice to avoid these differences is to take more seeds. I generally performed a lot of similar experiments with the Arabidopsis thaliana (fruit fly of the plant). For all my plates (cups in your case) I used 25 - 30 seeds. If you do not have that much space/ seeds, I would recommend using at least 10 -15 seeds.
Good Luck and Have Fun!
Swadhin
Hello Swadhin
My group is testing how different levels of PH will affect the growth of the plant. Each container of seeds will be watered with different PH levels. Every Friday, we will measure and compare the hights of the seeds. We think the container of seeds that is watered with higher PH levels will take longer to grow than the seeds that are watered with lower PH levels. We let more than 15 seeds soak, so my group may decide to use more than 5 seeds in each container.
Thank you
Elizabeth, Shana, Ryleigh, Thijs.
Hello Swadhin. We had a long weekend, so we didn't have time to update our activity.
In class, we have been filling out a worksheet, to show the process of our experiment. Our teacher found some powder to lower and raise the PH level. We are going to add this to tap water. (PH level of 7) Here is our procedure:
1. soak 15 soybeans in tapwater for 12 hours
2. spread seeds out into 3 containers. (5 seeds in each container)
3. every Friday, measure the height of the stem.
Hi Elizabeth,
Did you have any fun activities during the long weekend? I am glad that you are working on the plan. It is not clear to me what is the experimental question you are planning to test? Do the 3 containers are different treatments or replicate for the same treatment? Do you think 5 seeds per replicate is enough for taking observations? What are the expected results for this experiment?
Swadhin
My group is using soybean for our seed. We decided to change our experiment. We are going to measure the PH levels in different types of water. A week ago we disected a lima bean seed, and looked at the different parts of it. Today we did research on the soybean. We found that it is a species of legume native to East Asia.
Elizabeth
That is great, you all are exploring different things. I have the following questions for all of you.
What are the different types of water you are going to use for the pH measurement? What pH level you are expecting in those water? What is the significance of knowing the pH of the water?
What are the different parts of a lima bean seed and what is the function of those part?
What kind of research you did on soybean?
Swadhin
I gave a simplistic overview of the experimental method in the previous post. You might do it in a different way. Let's discuss the detailed plan. First, what is your hypothesis that you are going to test? What are the experimental plans? How do you record the observations? How do you interpret the result?
Best
Swadhin
My group started brainstorming, and we came up with an idea, that we could soak one seed with water, and leave another seed alone. Then we could compare the germination process.
Thank you for your help,
Elizabeth, Ryleigh, Shana, and Thijs.
Sounds great! Light and water are two important factors that influence seed germination. The water absorption by seeds is called imbibition. You can put the seed on a plate with dry tissue and wet tissue (enough water to keep the tissue wet, not submerge the seeds). Keep one plate each in light and dark (wrap with aluminium foil). Observe the germination event each 24 hr for the plate kept in light. Once all the seeds are germinated in light, observe the dark-grown seeds. The emergence of radicle (embryonic root, the white structure protruding from the seed) is recorded as seed germination. I would also recommend having a class before doing the experiment on what is a seed, why plant develops seed, what are the uses of seed, basic seed structure. Which seed you are going to use?
Swadhin
Hi Swadhin,
That is very interesting. Can you please explain what a mutant plant is?
My group was thinking about doing a project on seed germination. Do you have any suggestions/experience with this topic?
Hi Elizabeth,
A mutant is an organism with an altered genetic character arising because of a changed DNA sequence in its chromosome. The agents which cause mutation are called mutagens. The mutagens can be a chemical compound or high energy radiation (gamma ray, UV). Exposure to these mutagens can cause mutation. There are laboratory methods to generate mutants. One example is the recently discovered gene editing technique.
I do have experience working with seed germination. I am glad to help you with this.
what type of science do you do? also, what was your latest experiment?
Hi Elizabeth,
I do all my research on a small weed plant called Arabidopsis thaliana. It is being used as a model plant (like fly and mouse) by the scientific community for the past 40 years to understand different aspect of plant development (e.g how flower develops), and response to various environmental factors (e.g. how plant perceive light or drought and etc).
My research primarily focused on understanding how the plant recognizes and respond to the light and hormone. As a scientist, I read a lot of articles relating to my research to keep myself updated about the current research done by other scientists around the globe. While reading, I come across a large number of unanswered questions. Some of the interesting question I choose to pursue as my research. Based on the research question, I formulate some hypothesis, and design and perform the experiments to test if my hypothesis is true or false. The experiments I perform used various genetic, biochemical and molecular tools and techniques.
My recent experiment is about how a mutant plant (experimental) that I generated, perceive light compared to its parental plant (control). My hypothesis is if the mutant has a defect in light perception it will grow either shorter (more sensitive to light) or longer (less sensitive to light) hypocotyl than the parental.
I would be happy to answer all your questions relating to my research.
Good Luck!
Swadhin
Hi. thank you for being our mentor.
we are Shana, elizabeth, ryleigh, and thijs.
Welcome, Shana, Elizabeth, Ryleigh, and Thijs. I am glad to work with you all.
we go to live oak school.
Shana enjoys eating. thijs enjoys tech activities. ryleigh enjoys crafts, and elizabeth enjoys drawing
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