Planting Science - Projects: Operation Evergreen
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Operation Evergreen

Project by group nebuzzellspring2018

Explore Nikhil, Sam, Hunter, Boden- We have learned in school that plants need nutrients, sunlight, water, and space to grow. We have also learned about the processes plants perform, such as reproduction and germination. Germination happens when the seed starts to grow because it is activated by enzymes. Reproduction is when a plant produces offspring. Outside of school, I have learned about which plants can grow well in Nottingham’s soil, which plants should be planted at different depths, how to plant a plant, and other things involving caring for plants, but not the science behind plants. However, I would really like to know how being near wifi affects plant growth, how different colored lights make plants grow differently, and how many plants can be planted close to each other without dying. I know that plants need to be cared for everyday or every other day. We have discovered that plants make food from water, sunlight, and Carbon dioxide. We also learned that plants have a cell wall, chloroplast, and a central vacuole. How can you tell if a plant is dying before it dies? Can a plant survive a week without water. : Over the past couple years we have worked with and studied plants. I know that plants need basic things to survive like water, sunlight, Co2, and a suitable environment to live in. We have also learned other things like processes of plant growth and maturity. I want to know many things about how different things can affect how the plant grows or survives. My experience outside of school isn't much because I have never worked with a garden or help grow a plant. One thing I want to know is what happens when you water a plant too much one day and then don't water it at all the next and how it affects its growth and health. My experience comes from working with my gardens outside and landscaping. I know that plants need water, sunlight, and fertile soil. What I learned in school is a little more than what I learned outside of school. What I learned is that seeds have embryos, seeds remain dormant until the conditions are right, and that all plants have cells. What soil is good for growth and how does gravity affect growth.
Research Question How do purple light, green light, blue light, red light, and regular light affect the growth of corn plants? We came up with this because we read that red light has long wavelengths and low energy, and purple light has short wavelengths and high energy, so we were wondering if the different energy levels affected the plant's growth. This fits what we know since we know that plants need a lot of energy to function.
Predictions The most likely outcome is that the purple light will let the plants grow best, since the purple light has the highest energy.
Experimental Design Materials- ClingWrap, 5 cups, a purple marker, a green marker, a red marker, a blue marker, 5 drip trays (Napkins) 15 corn seeds, soil Several boxes The Process- Plant 3 corn seeds in each cup 1 inch deep in 5 cups with holes poked in them. Put napkins (makeshift drip trays) under the containers. Put all 5 cups in a sunny place Put clingwrap over each of the 5 cups, and color the clingwrap on four of them with a marker. You should color them red, purple, green, and blue. Each cup should have one of those colors. Leave the other clingwrap cup clear. This will be your control. Check if the plant needs water by putting your finger an inch into the soil- if dry, water until water comes out of the bottom. Take measurements of height in cm. You should also take qualitative measurements in your journal of things like color, width, and a description of the leaves. The plant became too big for its clingwrap, so we made a wider length of clingwrap, so when the plant forces the clingwrap upward, it will still be surrounded. That got too small, so we put the plants in boxes with dividers, and hung clingwrap from the box. We oriented the boxes so that it was on its side, and the long side was pointing up. The opening was on the side of the box, where the curtain was hung from. One of the boxes was 59x21x39 cm. Another was 53.5x23x32 cm. The last box was 43x29x30 cm. The first box was the largest. It had a divider made of cardboard down the middle. A blue colored sheet of clingwrap and a red colored sheet of clingwrap both hung from the top, and they stopped at the divider. The second box only had green in it. A green sheet of clingwrap hung from the entire thing. That box was the second largest. The smallest box was separated by a divider into purple and clear. That box might be too small soon. However, the other plants will be able to grow in their boxes for some time.
Conclusion Our research question was about what color light would help plants grow the tallest. Our hypothesis was that the plant that received purple light would grow the best out of the five plants. The reason we chose the purple light is because it has the shortest wavelength of the color spectrum, and thus, it has the highest energy. The colors of light that we used were red, blue, green, and purple. Our control was the clear light. Our hypothesis was not supported, however, as in our experiment, the clear plant grew the tallest. One thing that might have caused that was when the plants grew too tall for their containers, which allowed normal sunlight to reach the plants. This probably affected the experiment because they were only supposed to get colored sunlight, and that might have contaminated the experiment. Another reason our experiment had problems was that to get colored light, we had to color plastic wrap with a marker. Some spots probably didn’t have marker, and some were not colored enough. This means that our results may have been unreliable. If we did this again next time, we would get some pre-colored plastic wrap in order to improve the light quality. We would also get better containers for the plants, so that they would not be exposed to regular light. Overall, the team and the experiment went well.
Investigation Theme WOS
Grade Level Middle School Students (grades 6,7,8)
School Name Nottingham Elementary
Session Spring 2018

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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.

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