Planting Science - Projects: The Cool Cucumbers
You are here: Home / Groups / NE Buzzell Spring 2017 / Projects / The Cool Cucumbers

The Cool Cucumbers

Project by group nebuzzellspring2017

Explore We know that all plants need water an sunlight to grow. The amount of water and sunlight a plant receives can affect the growth of the plant. Also, the amount of sunlight and water a plant needs depends on the type of plant. A slight breeze can help the seedling grow more sturdy but heavy wind can damage the plant and possibly kill it.
Research Question How will giving too much water, not enough water, and too much wind affect the growth of radish seeds?
Predictions Our predictions are, the flooded plant will grow better than the plants with scarce water. Also, the plant that gets wind will grow the same way the controlled plant does. Lastly, the controlled plant will grow the best out of all of the planted seeds.
Experimental Design For our experiment, we will need a various amount of materials. To start the materials needed are; 4 clear 2 liter soda bottles, A Ruler, Tape, Sharpie, Soil (4 cups), Radish Seeds, A Fan, and Water (Controlled and Wind- 40 ml/ Drought-25 ml/ Flood 55 ml) First, you will collect the 4 bottles, and cut them to the appropriate size(5 inches). Then, using the tape and sharpie you will label each bottle, each bottle will be different, one will say controlled, one will say flood, one will say drought, and one will say wind. After you label each bottle you will then fill each bottle with soil, the soil will almost touch the rim of the bottle. Next, you will make 1/2 inch holes that are 1 inch apart, you will plant two seeds in each hole, then cover them back up with soil. You will then let the plants sit for about a day. On Wednesday we will give each plant the appropriate amount of water they need (Controlled and Wind-40 ml Flood-55 ml Drought-25 ml). The only plant that will get less water is the drought plant, the plant that will get more water is the flood. The plants will get water every other day, besides the plant labeled drought; the drought plant will get water on Friday. We will start applying wind to the bottle labeled wind when that plants starts to stick out of the soil. Every plant will be get 7-8 hours of light. We are measuring the plants by using centimeters, then we averaged the height of the plants in the bottle. Each bottle will follow a different watering pattern, depending on what they are labeled.
Conclusion Overall, in our experiment, all of the plants thrived and continued to grow, however towards the end, all of the plants in the flood and drought bottles started to die. Our group discovered that even if wind was or was not applied the plants would still lean over. In addition, we discovered that the climates we used may not have been extreme enough to drastically change the plants growth. Towards the end of the experiment, when measuring we found that the plants were much more fragile than in the beginning of the experiment. In the end, even though all of the plants continued to grow, during the experiment, the flood and drought plants eventually ended up dying due to the climate they were given. The results of this experiment show that floods and droughts can grow plants just as well as average climates do, however, they will not grow as well and they will end up dying.
Investigation Theme AFW
Grade Level Middle School Students (grades 6,7,8)
School Name Nottingham Elementary
Session Spring 2017

Team

LogoWithTags.png

f_logo_RGB-Black_72.png 2021_Twitter_logo_-_black.png icons8-mail-30.png

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

GET INVOLVED AS A TEACHER  *   GET INVOLVED AS A SCIENTIST MENTOR

SUPPORT US!   *   TERMS OF USE

NSF_Logo.jpg This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #2010556 and #1502892. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Copyright © 2022 PlantingScience -- Powered by HUBzero®, a Purdue project