Dear Dragon Blood Trees -

Please give yourselves a round of high fives for bringing your project to a successful conclusion.  You overcame some difficult initial problems and decisions and then really got busy figuring things out as you went through the experiment.  I was impressed with your postings to this website, which were among the most literate I have seen in years.  I greatly enjoyed meeting you by Zoom, and I wish there had been more time to have additional meetings towards the middle and end of the project. 

Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving and a successful completion of this first half of the school year.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Schnabel

Farewell and Best Wishes

As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.

Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.

After the end of the session, we will be updating the platform and archiving groups and projects, after which time new updates/posts will not be able to be added to projects or groups. You have until Friday, November 19, 2021, to post ALL of your updates, comments, and goodbyes. Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Project Gallery anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Gallery by keyword, team name, topic, or school name.

Good bye for now.

Warm regards,

The PlantingScience Team

Hello, thank you so much for your help and advice. P.S we are making a presentation next week. From the Dragon Blood Tree's

Dear DBTs -

Thanks for uploading those photos of your graphs.  I have three suggestions/questions:

1) For the height data, I think the line graph is more successful than the bar graph.  It's easier to read - to see the differences between treatments.

2) Also for the height data, is there a way in your graphing program to make the x-axis give the number of days after planting rather than the date.  For example, if you planted on 10/8 and took your first data on 10/14, then you could call 10/8 day 0 and 10/14 day 6.  Then you would count the days from day 0 and plot your x-axis a continuous variable between 0 and 21 (three weeks from planting).  I'm suggesting this, because the measurements were not evenly spaced in time - some were two days in row and some were a week apart.  The plants have more time to change in a week than in a day.

3) On all graphs, I suggest adding units of measure to the y-axis label, such as "Height of plant (cm)".

4) For the data on plant weight, are the data shown in the graph the averages for each concentration, or did you put all the plants together from one treatment and get a total weight?  I think the correct way to collect and analyze these data would be this:  a) measure the weight of all plants in each pot to get 2-3 measurements for each salt treatment; b) divide those weights by the number of plants in each pot to get a weight per plant, because some pots had 4 plants and some had 5; c) take the average weight for each salt treatment.

I'm going to try to upload the graph I made of your data.  This may or may not work.  I included only 6 of your measurement days in the graph - I think I'm missing one week of data.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi Team,

I noticed that your experimental design is still in draft form. Please update that today. Make sure your salt to water ratio is clear - I see .8 salt but no explanation of units of measurement and how much water you were dissolving the salt into.

Journals: Make sure you are writing about your conclusions as you discuss the results with each other. I should see updated journals posted from everyone. Luke's is missing. Post your graphs, too.   

Next, go to this Planting Science resource page . Your group needs to answer these questions - in writing. Post your answers here on the blog so your mentor can give you feedback.

Keep up the good work!

Hi Everyone,

You have been working hard with documenting your experiments, so please make sure that your most recent journal has been uploaded to your Planting Science Files tab. The file name cannot contain your last name, and it needs to be downloaded as a pdf. Please do not attach Google docs!!

Good morning Quinn and team -

Yes, I've made a line graph for the height data as well.  If you can upload your graph - either a screen shot of the graph or perhaps the actual file you used to create the graph - then I'd be happy to compare mine to yours to see if we agree.

Best regards,

A. Schnabel

Hi,

    We did line graphs for our height data, and I think that we are doing bar graphs for the total weight. 

Dear DBTs -

Very cool photos of those roots.  Did you measure them?  If you did, what were the procedures you followed?  If you are going to do a presentation, perhaps you could include those photos and label them with their treatment, as they show multiple differences in plant size and other features.

Best regards,

A. Schnabel

Hi Team -

Congratulations on getting those final data recorded.  I'll have a look at your journal entries over the weekend.  Next week you put together a presentation about your project?  I'd like to hear your ideas for the best way to present the data as a graph.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Our Final Mass Weight- average (grams):

Control- .8

.4- 1.2

.8- 1.2

.1- .3

Hello, here are today's measurements. 

Here is what I put in my journal today:

Comparing the control to the .4 concentration I can see that the tips are full brown and some of them are all shriveled up. I can conclude that we over-watered them and there wasn't enough sunlight. The control is doing better than the others but not by much. The controls seem in better shape as of height and how green they are.. The control showed some signs of dying but not as much as the .8 or the .4 concentration. Otherwise the plants are doing the same as they have been. I think the turning point in this experiment is 10.19.21 that is when things started to go downhill. That's all for now.

I hope this is helpful!

Here are today's measurements.

Hi Professor Schnable, here are the measurement from Tuesday. 

Hi, we don't have any data for yesterday, because we didn't have school. 

Hi Everyone -

It's troubling that ALL of your plants are unhappy.  You might think that at least the control plants would still be healthy, although perhaps a little bit spindly due to low light levels.  I see that Jazzlyn may have tried to upload a couple of photos, but those have not come through for me.  It would be good to have a look at these unhappy plants.

Looking forward to seeing the next set of measurements as well -

Andrew Schnabel

Hi Professor Schnabel, 

    We will be finished with collecting data by the end of this week. We moved the plants to grow lights. 

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Our plants are all practically dead. Sorry for the bad news.

It also seems that they are shrinking... somehow.

Hello, this week our plants aren't looking very good. Most of them are shriveling up and dying in all of the pots. The pipe cleaners aren't working very well, so we have decided to just let the plants be. We are planning on doing root length but we will not be doing dry weight. At the end of this week, we are most likely going to be done collecting data.

Dear DBTs -

How are your plants looking this week?  Are the props working?  I'd be eager to see more data and more photos, as I hear from your teacher that this might be the final week of data collection. 

I've been keeping a graph of the data as you send it to me, and I'd like to see in the end, if my graph looks like your graph and whether we reach the same conclusions about your experiment. 

Also, I recall that you were going to collect data on final dry weight and root length of each plant.  Are you still planning for that?  If so, and you aren't sure just how to go about that data collection, we can discuss it through these posts.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi, for lighting, we just have the classroom lights. The yellow color is most likely from the salt. 

Hi, thanks for letting us know. This is the correct data. The top one is the first .8 pot and the bottom one is the second. We think that our plants need support, so maybe we could stick a pencil in the pot and lightly use string to tie it around the plants? 

Hello Dragon Blood Trees -

Continued growth - that's great.  Differences between treatments are becoming even easier to see!

Three quick notes:

1) It looks like you have accidentally repeated the data for your third control pot in the first 0.8 pot.

2) You have started including your zero numbers in your averages, but that's not correct.  If a seed has not germinated, then there is no measurement to make.  It's not a zero - it's just no measurement.  So for example, the second control pot has four plants, and heights of only those plants would be included in the average. 

3) I'm going to continue to assert that your third control pot will not be usable, because it got a much later start than all the other pots.  Thus, that pot has not received the same growing conditions as the other two pots, and so it violates the design of your experiment.  Leaving it in will mess things up; taking it out is the correct move.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Good day Team -

Excellent observations about color, wilting, stem thickness, and other features!   Those are all important observations in helping you round out your explanation of the effects your treatments are having.  Let's try to understand what's happening to your plants right now:

1) You have some changes in color (yellowing, red pigment).  What might the causes be?  I'm not convinced by the hypothesis that the red color signals a build-up of sugars.  Sugars are not red.  Could the color changes be due to too much or too little light?  How much light are you giving them?  What's the lighting set-up you are using?

2) You are seeing some wilting and leaning.  What might the causes be?  What hypotheses can you come up with to explain these observations? 

Let's get a discussion going about the possible causes of these new developments. 

Last, thanks for the data, but the data you uploaded are the same as the data you previously posted for the second 0.8 pot.  Thus, you are still missing the data for the first 0.8 pot.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

    Hi, we will take the control pot out when we average all of the pots for each group together at the end. 

More plants in the .1 group are turning yellow. The stems of all of the plants are still red, which is the buildup of sugar, and are wilting,leaning, and droopy. We think that they may need more support. The plants being watered with the saltier concentrations have thicker stems than the controls. We didn’t measure today, but we did water, and are going to measure once a week. The leaves are oval-shaped. 

Hello, we are keeping the zeros in only to show that we looked to see if there were any plants growing. We can stop continuing to have the zeros in the average though. After talking some more, we have decided that we will continue measuring the control but we can take that pot out of the average for our controls. Here is the correct data for those plants that had repeated data

hi, we have decided that we will keep Control 3 in the project because if we take it out it will mess things up.

Hello team -

Thanks for the continued data updates.  I see that your third control pot now has some germination.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can include those plants in your experiment, because they are so far behind the rest.  I'm building a graph of your data, and I can see that you are getting some interesting differences among treatments already.  Congratulations!

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi, weighing the dry weight of the plants at the end of our project seems like a great idea and we will definitely do that at the end. We measured and watered all of our plants today.

Hi, weighing the dry weight of the plants at the end of our project seems like a great idea and we will definitely do that at the end. We measured and watered all of our plants today.

Hi Teams!

It's great to see plants growing! Hopefully all groups will see some growth by Monday. A few things to keep in mind:

Water - you may need to adjust the amount! If you have 100 mL daily written in your experimental design, but your plants are sitting in soil soup, it's ok to record the observation that they don't need that much water, and adjust the amount / frequency of watering (unless amount of water is your independent variable). 

Recording data: 

Data tables are great for organizing data! Add your unit of measurement to the heading of each column - and just record numbers on your table. It's a good idea to include 0's to show no growth so it is clear that nothing grew.

Keep up the great work and keep asking questions!

When averaging your plant heights, don't forget to divide by the total number of plants in the pot. If you notice that most of your plants are an average of 2 cm tall, but one group stands out at 16 cm, check to see if it really is that much larger. 

Make sure you are giving other group members a chance to measure and discuss your observations to see if anyone notices differences you may have missed.

Hi Luke -

Glad to hear that you are back in the research lab.  I've started tracking your group's data, so please encourage them to keep posting. 

I thought of one more dependent variable you might be able to measure at the end of the experiment: total above-ground dry weight of the plants.  To use this variable, you'd need to cut each plant at the soil level at the end of the experiment, put each in very small envelope, dry them for a couple of days, and then weigh them.  I don't know what the quality of your balances is in your lab, but if it's good enough, you could then get a measure of total growth for each plant.  That would add extra information beyond the growth in height or the growth of roots.

Hope you all have a good weekend -

Andrew Schnabel

I've been absent for a week and haven't been able to do anything with this project but my group just caught me up with everything so i'm okay.

Thanks for the advice, here are today's measurements. 

Dear Team -

It was great to visit with you yesterday.  I see that you are off and running with watering and measuring.  I'm looking forward to seeing frequent data posts in the future.  One quick point - I think you should probably exclude seeds that don't germinate from your analysis.  For example, for your second control pot, you have 4 plants and one seed that did not germinate.  You gave that ungerminated seed a measurement of 0, but I think the correct thing to do would be not to give it any measurement so that your average would be only for the four seedlings that are present.  This would change your average to (6.4+5.7+5.8+7.1)/4 = 6.25. 

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

We watered the plants with salt concentrations today. 

Hello! I was dissmised from school before I was able to plant with my group. Just letting you know. Also for the DBTs, update me with what we have to with our jounals. I am not sure what to write in my journal exactly since I missed the planting and wasn't able to see what happened. 

Congratulations!  Keep your fingers crossed for good germination.

Hi, today we planted. 

Hi Everyone! 

We have groups that have started planting today! Very exciting!! Some groups have questions because we are not in school after today until 10/13, so that will affect plants that are getting a reduced amount of light and it may affect some groups watering schedules.

I hope to have photos of projects added soon, and the students are starting their science journals today!

Students are also very excited about upcoming Zooms with mentors. 

Keep up the good work!

Dear Dragon Blood Trees -

Thank you very much for the added explanation of your salt concentrations.  Let me see if I correctly understand what you are doing:

Salinity of sea water can be measured in parts per thousand (ppt).  This is calculated as:

salinity in ppt = grams of salt / 1000 grams of sea water

For pure water, 1000 grams = 1000 milliliters or 1 liter

Thus, for your concentration of 30 ppt, you'll need to dissolve 30 grams salt in 970 ml pure water.  Then, the combination will be 1000 grams, and 30 grams of that will be salt.  For a concentration of 5 ppt, you'll need to dissolve 5 grams salt in 995 ml pure water.

From all the information I can find, oceans have a salinity of 35 ppt, but freshwater lakes and rivers have a salinity at or below 1 ppt.  Since you are shooting for brackish waters, which are a mixture of sea water and fresh water, you'll need some values in between 1 ppt and 35 ppt.  Thus, if you do 30 ppt, 18 ppt, and 5 ppt, as Jazzlyn has written in the latest post, you'll be in that range.  However, I'm thinking that 30 ppt will be too high, and so I suggest keeping 18 ppt as your high end, but trying something like 2 ppt for your low end.  All you would need to add is the control (no salt at all - 0 ppt).

Am I understanding what you are proposing correctly?  If not, please feel very free to explain where I've misunderstood your plan.

Thanks very much, and keep up the good work.  You are getting very close to a final design.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Materials:

1. Salt: .8 times three=2.4 30ppt .4 times three=1.2 18ppt .1times three=.3 5 ppt  3.9 times 10=39 grams

2. 39 grams of salt 

3. 12 pots

4. ¾ cup of soil per pot (times twelve)=nine cups 

5. One hundred twenty corn seeds-five per pot 

6. 39 grams of salt 

7. two liters and seven hundred milliliters of water total

8. Two seeds to a cup

Hi, we are hoping to compare our salt concentrations to those of brackish water, such as a salt marsh. 

Hi! We just updated the unit of measurement we are using (grams). This is an idea that I (Jazzlyn) am just suggesting that we could use clear pots/cups and put the seeds on the edge so we can monitor the roots. Thanks for the suggestions and questions.

DBTs

Hi Team -

Thanks for the updates.  The design is really coming together well.   I like the change in concentrations (see question 1 below), and I especially like the replication.  Your description was very clear, and so that helped me think of two additional questions:

1) What are the units of measure for your concentrations: 0.1, 0.4, 0.8? 

2) How are you going to measure differences in root growth?  Roots are a very good thing to measure, and I think you should definitely stick with that idea.  I'm just wondering how you will do the measuring.  Perhaps we can discuss that as the experiment gets going.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi, we changed our salt concentrations to .1 .4 and .8 and the control with no salt. We are watering with these concentrations each time. They will be watered the 25 ml every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We have three different pots for each salt concentration. 

Hi Team, 

Please make sure that you answer your mentor's questions. I know what you worked on in class today, but I don't see anything mentioned in the blog post. I think his concern was that if you tested water with too high a salt content, then nothing would grow at all and that would make for some very boring observations. Anyone in the group can post and you can do it during WIN or after school, but please make sure you are sharing your ideas!

Hi, this is what we have done for our rough draft so far. We are changing our seeds to corn with five to a pot, planted two inches deep in the soil. We are watering the corn seeds with twenty-five ml of water. 

Hi Team!

I like your revised plan! Make sure you've let your mentor know what your plans are. I would like to see groups start planting by Friday.

Keep up the good work!

Just to confirm what we wrote is just a rough draft.

Hi, we have decided to put two cress seeds in the same cup and two ryegrass seeds in the same cup. There are going to be eight cups total. We are watering both the cress and ryegrass seeds with fifty ml of water every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. One of the cups with the ryegrass seeds and one with the cress seeds will be the control and just be water. Another set of cups will get the water with one half of a gram of salt dissolved in it. A different set of cups will get the water with two grams of salt dissolved in it. There will be another set that will get the water with five grams of salt dissolved in it. This is our research from yesterday. We will update you with our prediction in a little bit. We are discussing it now. 

Hi Team! I know you worked on revising your prediction today - it would be a good idea to share what you came up with and update your website!

Good morning Dragon Blood Trees -

I've read through your documents, and I have a two initial comments.

First, I think your first two predictions are good ones and could be tested in an experiment.  These are the ones about plants growing slower and about roots shriveling up.  The longer prediction, which you entered into these posts several days ago, is more general and doesn't state a specific outcome that you expect to see. The other predictions are clearer and easier to translate into an experiment.  For example, if you germinated the seeds in a petri dish, you could see both the rate of germination (a measure of the rate of plant growth) and the extent of root and shoot growth.  If you recorded how many seeds germinated each day over a week, you'd get an estimate of germination rates.   Or, if you measured the length of the roots after 5-6 days of growth and compare freshwater vs saltwater treatments, then you'd know whether roots get shriveled in saltwater.

Second, I think you should consider another aspect of these plants:  how long it takes before germination should normally occur.  The cress will germinate very quickly, but the rye grass might take as long as a week or more to germinate. (I know this, because I clicked on the helpful links you provided in your document and read the information on those websites.  Thanks for those!)  Thus, then planning your experiment, you'll need to consider how long it will take for you to be able to start collecting data.  That's another reason that I think an experiment with seeds germinating in petri plates might be better than an experiment with seeds in soil.

Let's keep the discussion going this week.  I'm eager to hear more about your planning.

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi DBTs -

Sorry for the slow response.  I think you have some good ideas here.   Could you clarify a couple of points for me:

1) By "different plants" do you mean different species, as in cress vs rye grass, or do you mean different individuals of the same species, as in two different cress plants?

2) You are suggesting that you'll see a lot of variation in the growth responses to a salt treatment.  How do you think that will differ from what plants would do, if they didn't get the saltwater treatment but instead got distilled water or rainwater?  If you measured some sort of growth, how would you expect the average growth for saltwater plants to differ from the freshwater plants?

Looking forward to more discussion and planning this week -

Andrew Schnabel

We think that saltwater will affect different plants at different rates, so some plants may not be affected while others won’t be able to grow. Some plants might only be affected by how large they can grow and how quickly they grow. 

Cool.  I'll wait to see what your prediction is.  Just one comment about that:  Your prediction should clearly state what the expected outcome of your experiment will be.  For this reason, it's a good idea to have an experimental design in mind when writing the prediction and especially to think about what sorts of measurements or other data you will be collecting as the experiment proceeds.

Andrew Schnabel

Thanks for the advice! We are not ready yet but will be soon. All we have to do is write our predictions/hypothesis and then we are ready to design the experiment. 

We are not doing anything related to the experiment today, but we will be sure to keep you posted. 

Dear Team -

Is this going to be the exciting week when you begin your experiment?  Let's be sure to communicate with each other during the planning.  It's critically important to get the experimental design right before starting the experiment.

Looking forward to hearing from you -

Andrew Schnabel

Dear Dragon Blood Trees -

Yes, I agree with your choice of seeds.  The cress should germinate very quickly (within 2-3 days, if the seed is fresh), and the rye seed should also be fairly quick to germinate.  These are very different plants - one a mustard family species (a dicotyledonous plant) and one a grass family plant (a monocotyledonous plant).  They will look very different when they germinate, and that means that you might need to think carefully about what traits you will measure in the experiment.  I suggest looking up photos of young seedlings of cress and rye so that you have an idea of what they should look like when they are healthy and happy.

As for your question, I think the effect of salt in the environment is an excellent topic to explore.  It will probably be a good idea for you to look up and read about what kinds of salt are in the soil and what the concentrations of salt are in regular soils or soils that might be somewhat higher in salts.  For example, soils in relatively dry areas that have been heavily irrigated for many years can build up higher and higher salt concentrations over time.

Hope you have a good weekend.  Our Botany Club is going apple-picking this Sunday, and the fall weather looks to be perfect.  I hope your autumn is also starting off well.

Best,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi Team!

As groups start to choose their research question, many students are wondering what seeds to use.

Millet, Corn and Ryegrass are types of grasses. You can find information about grasses here (the top 2-3 paragraphs have some interesting information) 

We have coriander seeds - they are in the carrot family!

Buckwheat is in the brassicaceae family - read this to find out what growing conditions it prefers!

Once you have decided what your research question is, do some research to see what conditions your chosen plants do best in - this will help you when you are analyzing your data. For example - buckwheat does not grow well in shade. This is important to know if you are testing different light sources!

We have corn, pearl millet, cress, rye grass, coriander, and buckwheat, and have decided on rye grass and cress. We are going to test the saltwater question. Would you agree, or is another plant better for this experiment? 

Thank you, 

Dragon Blood Trees 

Dear DBTs -

Yes, plants make music, but you need to be flexible in what you mean by music.  For example, in East Africa, you can find whistling-thorn acacia, which has large, swollen thorns on its branches that lead to a whistling sound when the wind blows through the tree.  As a research question, however, studying the effect of music on plants would be tricky and not all that closely related to the environment that plants actually experience out in nature.  Remember that your experiment has only about 2 weeks from start to finish, which means that you need a project that will show some results for the early stages of germination and growth.

By the way, what species of plant will you be using?  What seeds are available to you?

Thanks,

Andrew Schnabel

The testable questions we decided on are: Does music affect plants? How would constant motion affect a plant’s growth?  Can plants grow in saltwater? We are most likely going to do the test the saltwater question. 
Do you think the question we picked would be doable in the classroom?
We are planning on using potting soil, pots, saltwater, beakers, water, and seeds. 
For materials, we have potting soil, pots, petri dishes, plastic baggies, pipettes, a pH tester or two, possible access to black lights. Some Grow lights are available, and our teacher has regular 40 or 60 watt light bulbs.

Here are some additional questions:

Do plants make music?

Does music affect plants?

9/23 

Hi Team!

Some teams have narrowed down their questions and presented them to their mentors. By the end of class today, your group needs to have 2-3 testable questions. Ask your mentor what they think would be doable in a classroom setting. We have potting soil, pots, petri dishes, plastic baggies, pipettes, a pH tester or two, possible access to black lights. Some Grow lights are available, I have regular 40 or 60 watt light bulbs. If you need something, ask me and I can check to see what I've got.

If you want something special, like different colored light bulbs, you may need to bring those in from home, so check with parents before deciding to test something that I don't have supplies for.

All groups should check in today to assess progress.

Hi Jazzlyn & DBTs -

Good questions.  I like the question about constant motion.  I think you could work out a design for that, and perhaps tweak the idea to think about a windy vs calm growing environment.  The question of salt is also a good one and relevant to many agricultural situations around the world.  An experimental design for that question also seems doable.

Let me know what your next steps are going to be.

How did the chromatography work out?  What did you learn?

Best regards,

Andrew Schnabel

Here are some questions:

Would using a glass-topped frame increase growth? 

How would constant motion affect a plant’s growth? Like if you grew plants on a road trip and the car kept moving. 

What types of salt can different plants take? 

What is the difference between the amount of water that each of the plants being tested need? 

Could land plants live underwater?

What plant grows the best with a small amount of sunlight?

Hi Teams! 

Today you want to be focusing on coming up with ideas that relate to the real world that you might be able to test. 

For example, in B block, we talked about the drought that is devastating California farms.  Some questions that came out of this discussion included: 

• How much water do plants need to grow?
• Do all plants need the same amount of water?
• What seeds/plants grow the best with very little water?
• CA is near the Pacific ocean - can plants tolerate some salt in the water and still grow?

Other external factors you might want to consider are light, temperature, or space needed for plants to grow. 

What are some real world problems involving plants that you can think of? Once you have a list of problems, see what your group can think of for creative solutions and write those down.

Your goal is to come up with an interesting problem to solve and a way to test your idea. Once you talk over your ideas with your mentor and decide on a an interesting question, you can move on to the next step - formulate a hypothesis (with an explanation of why you think it will work) and after you have a written plan for your experimental design, it will be time to plant!!

Hi Team!

As you start thinking about testable questions, remember that we are going to be focusing on seed germination / plant growth. 

As a class, we talked about what makes seeds sprout and what plants need. Here are some ideas and questions that we talked about:

How much water is needed for plants to grow?

Do different plants need different amounts of water?

What temperature will be best for plant growth? 

Do seeds need light to sprout?

Plants need warm weather, water and sun to grow.

Can we grow plants without soil?

Seeds aren't dead - they are dormant and need to have the right conditions to grow.

These are just a few of the ideas and questions that each class came up with. 

A few students and mentors have asked what seeds we have available to work with:

Rye Grass, Pearl Millet, Corn, Cress, Buckwheat, and Coriander

Also, just a heads up that we have NWEA testing next Monday and Tuesday, and Mrs. Wheeler is coming in for a guidance lesson Wednesday, so we have a different schedule and may not be able to check in with Mentors on those days. 

Groups should be sharing their ideas for testable questions with their mentors. Ideally, you will have a testable question and hypothesis by the end of the week, and then you can start working on your experimental design.

Keep up the good work!

Dear Dragon Blood Trees -

Glad to hear you are in the lab and working on chromatography.  What's the point of that experiment?  What are you hoping to learn from it?

Thanks for all the interesting information about your experiences with plants.  The best part is that everyone seems at least "okay" with plants, which is always a good place to start.  You never know when the biological world will surprise you, so it's good to keep an open mind at all times.

I've looked through your questions, and if your research project is going to be about seeds and seed germination, then you can probably eliminate several of your questions and try to focus on the ones that would involve seeds.  Thus, you'll probably not be exploring "Why do leaves have different shapes?", but you might be able to work up a project that involves particular environmental conditions (eg, pH) and their effects on seed germination and seedling growth.  It might help our thinking, if we knew what types of seeds you have available to use for your experiments.  Can you find out that information from your teacher?  Let me know. 

And, I'd be interested to see a photo of your chromatography results, along with what you think they show you about plant pigments.

Thanks much.  I'm looking forward to hearing from you all again very soon.

Best,

Andrew Schnabel

Hi, we are starting a leaf chromatography lab today. 

9/17 Happy Friday, Everyone!

Today all groups should be finalizing a team name (plant related, puns encouraged!) and adding to your webpage. You can also upload a plant related icon (just one - agree on it before posting!) and we will add a team picture later once I have the list of who is allowed to post photos.

Once this is done, open your Google doc that you started yesterday and revise your Explore statement. Proofread it and have one group member edit the Explore section above. Remember that only one person can edit at a time!

Next, check to see if your mentor has responded to your group and answer any questions they may ask.

Your team can start brainstorming a list of questions - focus on germination or plant growth. You will be choosing one to research, so you can share the list on your group updates so your mentor can see what you are thinking about. They may give you some ideas, too.

Also, I will be posting a compilation of what all three classes came up with for questions and things they know about plants. The question about why do plants have different shaped leaves was great - I have some photos I took of different leaves that I will post, too!

Hi everyone. Welcome to a new session of PlantingScience! I am the liaison for this group, Shan Wong. My role is to facilitate the conversation between this group of students and your mentors when it is needed. A bit about myself, I am a PhD student at Texas Tech University. My PhD research was about the orchid mycorrhizae (the interaction between orchid mycorrhizal fungi and Vanilla species). I am looking forward to working with you all.

Hello Mackenzie, jazzlyn, Quinn, and Luke -

Welcome to PlantingScience!  I'm going to be your scientist mentor for the project.  I live in South Bend, Indiana, where I teach biology (and lots of botany!) at Indiana University South Bend.  My students and I do a lot of different things with plants.  Like today, some of my students are going out to a local park to learn about tree diversity.  Over the many years I've been teaching here, my students and I have studied how pollinating insects affect plant reproduction in some tree and herbaceous species in Kenya, we have investigated how well restored prairies mimic the plant diversity of original prairies, we've studied the diversity of aquatic plants in our local river, and we've used genetics to help understand the evolutionary history of some groups of trees.  I'm also involved on our campus in an effort to build two small wetland areas near the river, and I've been working on helping the university collect data on the diversity of the trees we have in and around the campus.  So, lots of different plant-related activities, in addition to teaching about plants in my classes.

When I'm not teaching or thinking about plants, I like running, canoeing, and reading books.   I haven't been to New Hampshire for many years, but I remember it to be really beautiful, especially in the fall when the trees turn their spectacular colors.

I don't know what your schedule is for this project, so if you could let me know what your first steps are going to be, I'd appreciate it.  Are you going to be exploring your knowledge of plants and then moving quickly to thinking of good research questions? 

I can help you with all parts of your project if you'll just stay in touch with me a few time each week.  Just keep me up to date on what you are working on and what progress you've made, and we can work together to build a fun and scientifically sound research project.

Cheers,

Andrew Schnabel

P.S.  Question from jazzlyn about addressing me:  Professor Schnabel will work just fine.  Thanks.

Hello, my name is Mackenzie. I am in 7th grade and I enjoy playing soccer, lacrosse, and basketball. 

Hey! My name is jazzlyn. How would you like me to address you? I like to play soccer and basketball.

Hi, my name is Quinn. I am a 7th-grade student in Nottingham, New Hampshire. I play the ukulele and love to run. 

My name is Luke im in 7th grade my hobbies are minecraft and anime

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!

To set up your project page:

• Choose your project team name. Need inspiration? Visit the project gallery to see other student teams.
• Upload a photo or avatar for your team.
• Introduce yourselves to your scientist mentor and get the conversation started!
• PLEASE ONLY CLICK "Share with team" ONCE. Sometimes the page takes a little while to refresh, so please be patient!
• In order to protect student privacy, please DO NOT share:
  • last names
  • social media handles
  • links to Google/Sharepoint documents, spreadsheets, or images
• We will remove these items as we find them in posts.