Annette, Peyton, and Josh,

Thank you all for being a wonderful team to mentor! I was impressed by your experimental design, attention to detail, and gorgeous microscope images. Specifically, I thought it was smart to simulate the high smoke treatment by burning 2 strings instead of increasing exposure time. This meant that the control plants were exposed to identical conditions as the experimental plants, apart from the single independent variable (amount of smoke) in your experiment.

Your graph of leaf width looks nice – using a line graph makes it easy to see the trend of leaf width over time. To improve clarity, one suggestion I have is to add a label to your y-axis. I can understand that the y-axis indicates leaf width in cm from the title and legend, but I would add a label to reflect this. You can then remove the “(cm)” from your legend labels, as it will already be indicated in that y-axis label. Of course, any specific instructions you have from your teacher take priority over my suggestions!

Do you have quantitative measurements of stomata density? And if so, are you planning on making a graph with them as well? If you only took measurements at the final timepoint, I think a bar graph would be the best way to communicate these results.

When writing your report, think through your results carefully. Check my previous message about the products generated while burning the strings, and try to find some online references to help explain your results. Anything from a .edu site should be reliable, and there should be plenty of articles from university extension offices that are written in an easy to understand way. From some quick searching, here’s one that I found that may be helpful: https://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/glad-you-asked/amoke-ash-plants.

Thanks again for being a great team, and good luck with your final report!

Bryce

Thank you so much for all the help that you did for our project. This will be our last week of communicating. We are working on writing a formal lab paper, and our research is done. Thanks again

- Annette, Peyton, and Josh.

- 

The purpose of the copper wire was intially used to hold up the strings. Then they would burn evenly. Should we still include it in out experiment paper?

Hi all,

I see that you’ve filled out your project information with the results of your experiment and got a result that differed from your initial hypothesis. That’s totally fine (and it happens more often than you would think)!

But I’m a bit confused by your explanation – “The plant is trying to over compensate for carbon dioxide, causing higher stomata density.” Are you saying that the increased carbon dioxide experienced by the plants in the high smoke treatments caused the increase in stomata density? Because plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, I think that more carbon dioxide would decrease stomata density, as the plant would be able to take up more carbon dioxide with less stomata.

Remember that carbon dioxide isn’t the only thing being produced when burning something! The combustion of a pure gas will generate products that are colorless (carbon dioxide, and sometimes carbon monoxide). But you're not burning a pure gas here. The smoke that you actually see when burning the string is mostly small, unburned particles of the string (aka ash). And because the string was soaked in potassium nitrate, there’s probably also some potassium nitrite being produced (though I’m guessing this is colorless). I’m thinking that this (ash + potassium nitrite) likely had a bigger effect on plant growth than any extra carbon dioxide being generated by combustion. Did you notice any smoke residue leftover on the leaves of the smoke-treated plants? Sorry if I led you astray with one of my earlier messages about combustion products!

Your experimental design is well written and very detailed. For your final report (if you have to make one?), I would make sure to add more info about the smoke treatments themselves. For example, include the number of strings that were burnt for each treatment, the length of the treatment, and the ages of the plants when you started the treatments and when you took your measurements. Also, what is the purpose of the copper wire? I don’t think you’ve mentioned it previously.

Are you planning on making a graph to visualize your results? Let me know if you need any help with this!

And finally, I think your work has relevance besides just smoke produced by forest fires. Air pollution and smog levels are increasing every year, making it harder for both us and plants to breathe. This means that understanding how air pollution affects plants is very important to plant scientists.

Okay thank you! The magnification was at 400x and Ill compare the photos to some online. 

Hi Annette,

Yup! The darker black dots should be stomata. In some of them, you can see a couple pixels of white in the middle - that should be the actual opening (aka "mouth") of the stomata. What magnification did you take these images at? It could be helpful to compare your images against some online examples taken at the same magnification. This would help you be more confident in stomata identification.

Hi Bryce I uploaded our three plants under the microscope, were thinking the blacker/ darker dots in the pictures are the stoma, would this be correct? 

That's a cool method of determining stomata density - I've never seen that before. If you're able to take a photo through the microscope of one of those epidermal impressions, I would love to see it. Excited to hear about your results!

We marked the leaves that looked like the same size and we will measure the leaves to determine the differences between the stomata, our hypothesis was the more exposure to smoke the more the stomata will reduce. So in the end the plant with two strings of smoke will have the least stomata density. 

http://resources.rothamsted.ac.uk/sites/default/files/groups/bioimaging_dev/Measuring%20Stomatal%20Density.pdf

this link will show you the method we plan to use to measure stomata density 

Photos look good! How are you planning to measure stomata density, and do you have any predictions about which plants will have the most stomata?

From their different heights, it looks like your plants may have germinated at slightly different times. To account for this, I would try to select leaves which are approximately the same size for measurements at the same time point. Smaller leaves may have higher stomata densities simply because the leaves are still expanding.

Hi Bryce

We ended up not doing the temperature testing, my teacher said the heat shouldn't be too much of a problem that it will affect the plants. We have 6 plants in each pot. We set up our gas chamber, to produce smoke we ended up soaking and drying an 8 inch piece of string in potassium nitrate and water, then we let the string on fire so it smolders creating smoke without a flame. We also decided to do one pot with no smoke, one pot that is in the gas chamber but with one string burning. Our last pot will be in the gas chamber for 10 min but we will be burning two strings creating more smoke. Ill be sending pictures of everything so far. 

Hi team,

Any updates on the temperature testing? How long are you thinking for the medium and long smoke exposure times? And are you including any replicates (i.e. multiple plants in each experimental group) in your experiments?

we didn't think of that, we will run a trial to see the temperature difference.

Using wood pellets to generate smoke is a good idea, and I like that you included a control. To know for sure that the smoke is causing any differences in growth you observe, it's important that the only differences between your treatments is the amount of smoke. Here's some extra things to consider:

1. Burning wood pellets will generate heat which may build up in the plastic container. Depending on the length of your smoke treatments, this heat may or may not matter. If you have the containers, wood pellets, and a thermometer, you could run a quick plant-free test to see if this heat results in a noticeable temperature difference.
2. It's possible that the plastic containers will act like mini greenhouses for the plants, trapping in heat. So even without the extra heat added by burning the wood pellets, the temperature inside the containers may be higher than the temperature outside. Again, the potential effect of this on growth depends on how long the plants will be in the containers. For shorter treatments (5-20 mins), I doubt that this will matter, but for longer treatments (1 hr +), it may be an issue. To deal with this, you could either find some way to control the temperature inside the containers (hard way), OR also stick your control plant in a (smoke-free) container for the same duration of your treatments (easy way).
3.  If you're taking chemistry, have you learned about combustion reactions? With photosynthesis in mind, notice anything interesting about the products of a complete combustion reaction? This isn't a concern, but just something extra to consider when interpreting your results.

Hi Bryce we're back from spring break and we have decided to go with the smoke experiment. We will use the pea plant and will measure different changes with the plant, including the stomata density and observational color changes. Our independent variables are one plant with no smoke, one plant with medium smoke time, and one plant with a long smoke time. To set it up we will have clear plastic containers and within we will light wood pellets on fire so we can get the smoke. All the plants will use the same soil and the same amount of water. 

Sure! Let me know when you have any updates or new ideas that you'd like feedback on.

Thanks for your help, we are still trying to decide what idea we want, we have spring break next week and we will let you know what we have come up with. 

Hi all!

Nice to meet you. My name is Bryce, and I'll be your scientist mentor. I'm a second year PhD student at Cornell University in New York. I study the adaptations that algae use to boost the efficiency of their photosynthesis. Thanks for telling me about yourselves! Here's a bit about me: my favorite hobbies are baking, drumming, and biking, my favorite food is pizza, and my favorite color is orange.

I agree with Shan - both ideas sound promising. Here are my thoughts:

1. Exposing plants to a controlled amount of smoke may be difficult, and would probably require you to construct a growth/smoke chamber of some sort (unless you all have something else in mind). I would look online to see if there's any designs for this that you can reference, and make a list of supplies that you would need to get it set up. The engineering aspect of this sounds really cool though, so if you're interested (and have the budget), go for it!
2. I like the idea of measuring stomata density - you have access to a microscope to take these measurements, right? If the smoke idea doesn't work out, it would be cool to test if other environmental factors affect stomata density instead.
3. Testing the effect of pH on plant growth is a great idea, but I have several questions about the specifics of this experiment. How will manipulate the pH of the soil? How do you plan to measure pH? And how will you measure plant growth?
4. Regarding the choice of plant, I think pea would be the easiest for stomata measurements because ryegrass and chives have narrow leaves that will be more difficult to work with. As Shan already mentioned, I would check germination times for ryegrass and chives. I think any of the 3 should be suitable if you're planning to measure plant growth after germination.

Hi Dirty Gloves! 

It's so nice to meet you! My name is Elizabeth, and I am the liaison for your group. I'm a PhD student at Portland State in Oregon, and I study how pollen and seeds move around on the wind! I think my favorite hobbies right know are knitting and making candles, my favorite food is either ice cream or tacos, and my favorite color is teal blue! 

So, I'm currently tracking down a mentor to work with you, but in the meantime, I'd love to talk about your experiment with you! Your experimental questions are awesome, and it'll be super interesting to see what you find. Shan had some great follow up questions, and I'm curious to hear what you think! 

Hello Dirty Gloves, 

This is Shan, the PlantingScience coordinator. Your mentor has notified me that she is swamped with her research work this semester. So currently we are recruiting a new mentor to guide you in completing this project. In the meantime, I will answer any questions regarding your project. 

I like both research questions. And I would like you to clarify or elaborate a bit about your questions. 

1. How are you going to set up different amounts of smoke (using which tools?) How are you going to measure plant growth, by height? 
2. What types of substances are you using to create the pH levels? What is the range of pH level are you going to set up? 

Peas will grow quicker for germination experiments. I have not worked with ryegrass and chives. Can you do some research about it and find out how long do these two seeds take to sprout? 

Keep up your good work! 

Regards,
Shan

Our possible research questions:

1. How does smoke affect plant growth and the stomata density?

- use different amounts of smoke to see affects on the plant.

2. How does different ph levels affect the plants growth?

- create different substances some with more acidic ph levels or a basic ph level and see how it affects plant

seeds of possible use: 

1. chives

2. ryegrass

3. pea

We would love your feedback on ur questions and are open to any ideas you have. 

Thank you, Josh, Annette, and Peyton

Hi my name is Josh 

My hobbies include fishing,baseball, basketball, and snowmobiling. I like to eat pizza and cheese-fries, my favorite is blue. Whats your favorite color?

Welcome to your PlantingScience project page!

Welcome to this community of plant researchers. As your team plans and conducts your own research project, you will be mentored by a scientist. The mentor's role is to encourage and guide you through the process of scientific discovery. The more you share your ideas and research information online, the more your mentor can help. You can also find out more about your mentor. What is their research about? Why did they go into science? What do they like to do when they are not working?

You may also hear from this classroom’s assigned scientist liaison. Liaisons work with several mentors and help make sure the conversations are going strong. They may also offer some extra advice or encouragement.

Two resources can help you get started:

• Student Roadmap
• Plant Investigation Toolkit

Best wishes as you start this scientific journey. We are all pleased to share this experience with you. Have fun!

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• Upload a photo or avatar for your team.
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Hello! My name is Peyton. I am a Junior in high school, My favorite things to do consist of shopping, hanging out with friends, and trying new foods. My favorite restaurant is Panda Express, I love their Orange Chicken and Chow Mein! What is your favorite food?

Hello My name is Annette, 

Some of my hobbies include volleyball, basketball and track. I like to read and go to the gym. My favorite drinks are coffee and bubblrs and I love to sleep. What are your favorite hobbies?