| Explore | Plants can live on land or on water. Different plants have different needs to grow, like the type of temperature, light, water, season, and region. We learned that plants reproduce asexually. . One question is if you plant the seed in different material would it grow faster, stronger, and healthier. |
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| Research Question | What will happen to alfalfa if we put the sprouted seeds in the freezer at different time periods? |
| Predictions | We predict that the alfalfa seeds will grow better when they are in the freezer for either 20 minutes. The cool temperature will most likely help the seeds grow best because alfalfa grows in cool climates, and they won't wilt or dry up as quickly as they would in warm soil. |
| Experimental Design | Materials: 10 party cups to plant our seeds in, 30 alfalfa seeds, potting soil, and a 40ml cup for watering. There will be 3 seeds and one cup of soil per cup, and 2 cups in each category for freezing the seeds. Each group of seeds will be put in the freezer at the same time, and then taken out according to which category they are in. We will also wait for the seeds to sprout before freezing them by placing them in a wet paper towel in a plastic bag. When freezing, the seeds will be on a new, dry paper towel. After each group is done freezing we will plant them in the red cups. They will be watered every day with one teaspoon of water and will be placed under a grow-light to grow. |
| Conclusion | In our experiment, we expected that the alfalfa seeds in the freezer would grow the best and be the healthiest. It didn't come out well because the seeds sprouted and they were raw and fragile. The cells on the inside burst due to the cold temperature. To begin, our hypothesis was that the seeds that were put in the freezer for twenty minutes would grow the best. We thought this because alfalfa grows best in colder climates, and the plants wouldn’t wilt like they might in warmer soil. However, only one of the control plants survived and grew. The control that grew only grew 0.1 millimeters. We had the seeds in a freezer for different amounts of time, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes, and fifty minutes. In addition, there were three main flaws in our testing. One fault was that the seeds had sprouted when we froze them for a bit too long, most likely killing them. The next fault is that we planted the sprouts to deep into the soil, therefore they were not able to grow past the soil. Additionally, the final issue was that we over watered them, making it so that they were no able to grow. We conclude this alfalfa test as a fail. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Grade Level | Middle School Students (grades 6,7,8) |
| School Name | Nottingham Elementary |
| Session | Spring 2018 |