| Explore | What do we know about plants? They grow from seeds, and if you don't take care of them properly they'll die. There are many different types of plants that need different conditions and care to survive. Why do different types of plants take different times to grow? Why does each plant need different amounts of water to grow? |
|---|---|
| Research Question | Can different seeds be grown in different lighting? Such as Blacklight, indirect light, and direct lighting. We are interested to see how long each seed takes to grow. |
| Predictions | We think it will germinate the fastest in direct sun light versus indirect lighting. We also believe that it will take much longer to germinate in blacklight compared to the other seed's growth time in different lightings. We are not sure if it will germinate at all in black lighting due to the number of nanometers in the UV light. We believe that Cress will grow best in indirect lighting, versus direct and blacklight since it is a type of vegetable it will need a bit of shade. We also think that ryegrass will like direct lighting since it is garden grass. We also believe that Coriander will get the same results as Cress |
| Experimental Design | EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: To start off, we will plant six seeds of Coriander in one pot and we will put this pot in sunlight. Then we will plant 6 Cress seeds in another pot. We will also put this in Direct sunlight. Next, we will plant 6 seeds of ryegrass and put them in direct sunlight. We will continue this process and plant two more pots for each seed, using the same amount of seeds for each pot. We will then put three pots one of each seed in direct sunlight, the pots will be on the window sill in direct sunlight, on the countertop farthest from the windows. and blacklight. For the black light, we will put the pots in a cardboard box and attach the black light to the top of the box. While the plants are germinating we’ll water them frequently to keep them moist. Once they germinate, we’ll only water them every few days at the same time. We will check on the plants every day. Each pot will get the same amount of water (50ml). We will monitor the plant growth using centimeters and keep track of the growth on a document using google forms. The overall goal is to see which plant grows fastest in the different types of lighting. SUPPLIES: 9 pots 18 Coriander seeds 18 Cress 18 Ryegrass Black Light Cardboard Box Potting Soil Water |
| Conclusion | Our prediction was partially supported. We predicted that our plants would grow best in direct sunlight, and worst in black light. We also thought that our plants would grow pretty well in indirect lighting, but they wouldn't be the healthiest. We were quite surprised by what we figured out. Now moving on to direct sunlight. Two of the three plants did great in this light. The Ryegrass grew very tall and sturdy in direct sunlight. 12.6 was our average height. The cress in direct sunlight germinated quite fast and was very healthy. The average height for Cress direct wsa 3.4 cm. . We ran into some problems while growing Coriander in direct sunlight. It never germinated and we have a couple theories why. Our first theory is that the seeds we planted were duds. When we checked with the rest of our classmates that planted Coriander they ran into the same problems. In indirect we got different results. We ran into similar problems with indirect lighting. Coriander grew the tallest, but it wasn’t as healthy as the blacklight. Its coloring was duller and was paler. There was white at the bottoms of the stem, and it was more of a paler green than the coriander in blacklight. The average height of the Coriander was 8.3 centimeters. The ryegrass grew pretty tall, but it was very thin and flimsy. At the end of the experiment, it was 11 centimeters tall. The cress was doing okay at first, but something happened and it died. The average height for cress indirect was 3 centimeters. We think that it was overwatered. We were surprised by the outcomes that we got from the backlighting. The blacklight ryegrass started off good but over time it shriveled up and was pale. We think that the blacklight dried up some of the plants since the soil got dry pretty quickly and the ryegrass even curled up at the ends. The cress had a similar outcome as ryegrass. It started out growing pretty well, then died. On the other hand, the coriander grew the best in this lightning. It didn’t grow as tall as the coriander in indirect light, but it was stronger and healthier. Our experiment was can seeds be grown in different lightings? We figured out that Coriander grew the best in Backlighting. We were really surprised by this. Our Cress plants grew the best in direct lighting;. Lastly, Ryegrass grew the best in direct sunlight. We also noticed that ryegrass was the first to germinate in direct sunlight. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Teacher Name | Rebecca Buzzell |
| School Name | Nottingham School |
| Session | Fall 2021 |