| Explore | Outside of school, we know that plants need water, sunlight, and fertilizer Plants are very important because they provide food for humans and animals. Some plants are good and some are bad, and there are thousands of different plants. Some of the bad plants that you’d want to avoid are poison ivy and stinging nettle. Different plants require different conditions to grow. Some plants like a lot of sunlight, whereas some plants prefer less. The same goes for water as well. In class, we learned just how important plants are and that almost all food requires plants somehow. Some questions that interest us are why different plants are different colors and why different fruits and berries have different flavors. |
|---|---|
| Research Question | Our research question is how much salt can the plant tolerate or what is the best amount of salt for a plant is. We came up with this question because this is what we are curious about and this can be tested in our science classroom. Using Buckwheat( a plant) We would add different variations of salt in their water. One plant would get an amount of salt in its water each day. The question we chose fits the topic because it is all about plant growth and seed germination. |
| Predictions | We all have a similar idea/ prediction on how the plants are gonna do. We predicted that the plants with the most amount of salt in their water would die and not show any results, and the plants with a little amount of salt in their water would end up the best. We think this because plants are naturally exposed to saltwater in life because water contains salt. Also, plants with no salt will be a lot better. |
| Experimental Design | Our plan is to find the best amount of salt for growing a plant. How are we planning to achieve this? First, we will plant 12 pots with 3 buckwheat seeds each. At first we will give the plant regular water until it sprouts, and when it starts to sprout we will start to use saltwater. To make the water, we will add different amounts of salt to 4 one liter bottles of water, one with none which is our control plant, another with 2 grams, 4 grams, and 6 grams. Every day we will measure out the correct water for the plants from the bottles and water them with it. Then we will measure the plants by height every other day to see which plants are doing the best. We plan on using 12 cups of MiracleGro potting mix, a container of salt, water, 12 one-cup pots, 36 buckwheat seeds, 4 one-liter bottles, and sunlight. |
| Conclusion | We predicted that the plants with the most amount of salt in their water would die and not show any results, and the plants with a little amount of salt in their water would end up the best. Our plan was to determine how much salt is best for Buckwheat. And our prediction was mostly supported. Our data shows that the plant with 2 grams of salt ended up being the best; the average height was 16.6 cm. As we predicted the plants with no salt did well; the average height was 15.9 cm. The plants with 6 grams of salt; had an average of 15.3 cm, and 4 grams of salt had 15.4 cm. These salt amounts started to die and shrivel up, and the leaves turned brown. We got this data from our graphs that we were recording daily of the buckwheats height. This data was a little confusing because of how many plants broke, but we resolved our problem by taking out the broken plants and still had a pretty accurate answer. We think that the 2 grams of salt did the best because of how little the amount of salt we gave them but also how they still got some. The 2 grams and the zero grams were very close, they were off 0.7 cm. We think this because plans are naturally exposed to salt in everyday life such as rainfall. We also think that different plants could have different reactions due to their natural environments. Meaning if a plant lives somewhere near the ocean their water is saltier than plants who live near lakes. Our group has other research questions that are for further use. These questions are: How much salt can a plant tolerate, What color of light is the best for plants. |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Teacher Name | Rebecca Buzzell |
| School Name | Nottingham School |
| Session | Fall 2021 |