| Explore | We know that plants need water and sunlight to germinate. Our background information provides that plants need a certain environment and habitat to germinate and grow. We also have many question about plants like: *Can plants in warmer environments adapt to colder environments in a short amount of time? *How do seeds get a food supply? *Does a dried out seed grow at the same rate as a fresh seed? *Can a plant grow without soil? We also read some articles in class about plants. We retained much information from them, for example, scientists are trying to figure out if gravity affects the way plants grow. They are also sending plants to the international space station to test this. Also, we learned that people are growing small, verticle gardens to keep them from overflowing. You can also use fish waste as fertilizer for plants to save soil. |
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| Research Question | How does a moist environment vs a dry environment affect the way a plant's height grows? How would these environments affect the leaf width? |
| Predictions | We predict that our plants are going to grow at different rates. We decided pea plants are going to be the plants we test. |
| Experimental Design | Research Question: How does a moist environment vs a dry environment affect the way a plant's height grows? Prediction: We predict that our plants are going to grow at different rates. We decided pea seeds are going to be the plants we test. Materials: 24 pea plant seeds 6 small flower pots Water Two plastic containers big enough to cover two pots Spray Bottle (water) 6 cups soil Safety: Do not eat the plants or any part of the seeds Wash your hands after you work with your plants and your seeds Procedure: #1 Place one cup of soil in each pot #2 Place four pea plant seeds in each of the six pots (make sure the seeds aren't visible, just drag soil over them). #3 Give each of the pots the same amount of water the first day, about 1/4 cup of water(this will change throughout the project to replicate environments). #4 The first day none of the plants will be covered to start the experiment as if its a regular environment #5 On every other day water the plants in the moist environment. #6 For the dry environment, water the plants with 45 millimeters of water every Tuesday and Thursday. For our experiment, we started on Wednesday and watered the plants every other Wednesday. #7 For the control of the experiment, we took a pea plant pot and kept it on the window sill and watered it with 1/4 cup of water every Wednesday. #8 Steps 6, 7, and 8 each demonstrate how we will make the environments. #9 Next, create a chart that says the name of the plant and has a row for measuring each plant. The unit you will be measuring by is centimeters. #10 Every day, record the measurement of each plant height and the width of the leaf in centimeters. Controlled Environment Regular time, every Wednesday Moist Environment Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday, mist the large container on Tuesdays and Thursdays Dry Environment Every other Wednesday |
| Conclusion | I thought that our control plant was going to grow the best. I found out that the plant that gets the most water is the one most likely to grow. Therefore, my hypothesis was incorrect. My data showed that the plants in the dry environment grew the slowest and the plants in the moist environment grew the fastest. For example, the greatest height difference between the moist and dry plants was 6.1 centimeters. The greatest height difference between the moist and the control plants was 6 centimeters. Even though it is a small difference, the moist and dry plants had a bigger difference, making the dry plants the slowest growing plants and the moist the fastest growing plants. I got these results because of the amount of water we used for each plant. For dry plants, we watered them 45 mL of water every Tuesday and Thursday. For moist plants, we watered them 90 mL of water every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. For the control plants, we watered them every Monday and Friday with 90 mL of water. These results support that the moist plant grew the best, for it got the most water. During the project, my group ran into many problems, such as messing up our watering schedule. At the beginning of the project, we watered one of the dry plants with ¼ a cup of water on Wednesday, which is a day that wasn’t supposed to be a watering day for dry plants. Because of this problem, we had to restart our entire project. After restarting, we were on a good track for the rest of the project. In the future, I would probably try doing my chart in Google Docs. This is because I feel like it was harder in Google Sheets and it would have saved time to do it in Docs. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Grade Level | Middle School Students (grades 6,7,8) |
| School Name | Nottingham School |
| Session | Spring 2019 |