Planting Science - Projects: 6c5 - The Mustard Farmers
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6c5 - The Mustard Farmers

Project by group sffsporterwosspring2023


Info

Explore We all know that plants need water, sun and food to grow, they also produce sugar and eat it as a type of energy/ food. We also know that there are a lot of different types of plants and they all need different amounts of water, food and sunlight and different climates and seasons. We all also...
Research Question We want to study water. Maybe how the temperature, amount or mudiness affects seed germination. We came up with these questions by thinking of what things can change the water and make it different and if those things would actually affect the plant.These questions fit the topic because it takes...
Predictions We think that the possible outcomes given the variables that we have are that some seeds might not grow, some might grow a lot in a short amount of time, and some might grow a lot but in more time. Our explanation for why and how we think this will happen is that we think different amounts of...
Experimental Design We have 4 petri dishes. They are all lined with paper towels and pre-wiped with alcohol and each contain 6 mustard seeds. The control dish gets 20 drops of water, and the others ones have 10, 30, 40 drops of water. We watered them before putting the seeds in and will water them every monday,...
Conclusion When we were gone for a week we were not able to water the plants or collect measurements and observations. This may have affected our results and made our experiment unreplicable. This will go down as human error. Some questions we have are how would our experiment be different if we had a...
About this Project
The relationship between the mentor and this team, The Mustard Farmers, is one of the highlights of their project. In reading their online communication, it is evident that they have learned so much. Best of all, they have been encouraged to continue to follow through on their project and...

Updates

Get to know your team’s scientist mentor, who will encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. The more you share your ideas and research info, the more your mentor can help. You may also hear from a scientist mentor liaison who will be helping all the teams in your class.
Jennifer A. B. Hartley
said

Wow, what a lovely set of messages to find today!  You're all very welcome.  I enjoyed mentoring you this session and you did a great job sorting through your procedure and your results!

Asha, I'm honestly not sure what the 'recommended' amount of water was. It might help to go back to those earlier weeks and see if you can recall who made that recommendation, and what assumptions they were making when they made it.  If, for example, the amount of water was recommended for planting in soil, the expectation would be that the soil would absorb some of it for the plants to access as they grew.  Since you were growing in a petri dish, the recommendation could have been off for that reason.  It's something you could probably experiment with later to find out.

I am a science educator now, and I am in research in soil ecology.  I got into science because I grew up loving animals, actually. I went to college thinking I would go into Wildlife Biology, but then I took an Identification of Woody Plants (shrubs and trees) class during my freshman year of college to fulfill one of my biology credits.  I had never really looked closely at plants until that class, and I was just hooked. Most of the scientists I know have a story sort of like that, where someone in their lives pointed out something interesting about plants, and their attention just caught.

Science may be a good fit for you, too, but even if it's not, at least now you know how to sprout seeds.  If you ever need to grow your own food, you're on your way! :)  Best of luck to you all for the rest of this year and beyond!

    Cole
    said

    Thanks! I love animals too! I think they're great and I may want to do something with them when I'm older. Who knows what the future holds. Thanks a ton,

    --Cole

Olivia
uploaded IMG_2187.jpg in project files
Carmen
said

Dear Jennifer, 

Thank you for teaching us about how to care for our seeds and always being open to answer all of our questions. During the experiment I learned that it is helpful to have a regular watering schedule and to be able to see your seeds everyday. I am very grateful that you were able to walk us through our very first experimental design. I am wondering if you have any feedback on how we could have improved our experimental design. Thank you again so much for helping us.

 

Sincerely, 

Carmen Pincus

Asha
said

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you so much for being such a great mentor! Our whole group learned a lot from you, you gave us great advice. Whenever you guided us when we were stuck or gave us questions to answer, you always gave great advice when it came to seed growing. Some things we learned about seed germination are: the bottom of mustard seeds are sometimes purple, the recommended amount of water for 6 mustard seeds isn’t the most effective and the last thing we learned was that mustard seeds sprout very quickly. I learned a lot about experimental design, but the most important thing I learned was don’t be afraid to try new things! You taught my team so well that I only have one question! My question is, why was the recommended amount of water for the seeds so inaccurate to what the best amount of water is for mustard seeds? A few things I wonder about being a scientist is, how did you get into science? The last thing I want to say is bye! Thank you so much for being so patient with our group and I hope you have a great life as a scientist!

Asha

Asha
joined the project
Olivia
said

Dear Jennifer,
You were the best mentor anyone could have or even dream of. Thank you for answering all of our questions, giving us advice, and so much more. Something I learned about seed germination was that seeds need a lot more water than I thought to germinate. Because of this experiment I learned that if you make a mistake it is called human error and it happens all the time in the scientific world. Thank you so much again. One last question I have is what type of scientist are you and how did you get your start in science or who inspired you?

You helped our experiment run smoothly and helped us get rid of all our worries about our experiment. I will miss having you always available to help and give us advice. I can’t even come close to how much I appreciate you.

Thank you one more time,
Olivia
P.S. I hope you continue to inspire more students in the future.
 

Cole
said

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you so much for being a great mentor during our project. It was super fun and I really enjoyed it. Thank you for asking us questions to make us better scientists and to make us grow. I feel like I became a way better scientist throughout this whole thing. I really want to thank you for being supportive and for helping us grow a lot and for giving us information and answering our questions. You are a great mentor and our group is very lucky to have you. I hope I can grow even more at being a scientist. Thank you for helping us learn about how to set up our experiment and helping us learn about different things that popped up in our project. Thank you so much, I can't even tell you how thankful I am to have you as our mentor. Goodbye and I hope you have a great day! Thanks!

-Cole

Olivia
said

Dear Jennifer,

Today we checked, watered, and measured our plants. They all look really good and have the same length of sprouts(Epicotyls and Hypocotyls) but the one with the most water, 6c5.4, has double the growth than all the others. It is also amazing that 6c5.4 grew 115 mm in 3 days. I had thought on Friday we had drowned the seeds but now their radicle are so much longer than all the other ones.

Olivia

Jennifer A. B. Hartley
said

This is a great summary!  I know some of those questions are shaping your next study, and that's important.  That's exactly how scientists work too.  Sometimes the unforeseen circumstances turn up information you wouldn't have come across if you'd been able to do your experiment the way you initially planned.

If you make a poster or other report about this for your class, I'd love to see it.  You've done some really good work on this!

    Cole
    said

    Thanks!

Cole
updated the project info
Olivia
said


Dear Jennifer,

Some things we learned is that mustard seeds grow very fast and we learned how to identify different parts of dicot seeds and plants. We learned that it is important to keep your petri free of bacteria and other things that can cause mold and disrupt the experiment by washing our hands before handling our petri dishes and seeds. We learned that what we thought the recommended amount of water used was effective but not as much as using a few more drops. When we used 10 more drops we had a lot more growth, but if you use 20 more drops you have almost double the growth as the recommended amount of water. 

Something different we would do next time is keep a more consistent watering schedule and take more observations about the seeds. 

An outlier was 6c5.4 because it survived the week we were gone and were not able to water our seeds. Its plants also reached the ceiling of the petri dish while the others didn’t.

When we were gone for a week we were not able to water the plants or collect measurements and observations. This may have affected our results and made our experiment unreplicable. This will go down as human error.

Some questions we have are how would our experiment be different if we had a more consistent watering schedule? Also why did only one petri dish survive the week we are away.

These results are important because companies could use this information to help more efficiently grow plants. This information could also help countries decide when to make it rain because there is a country that stimulates rain artificially and their technique could be our future.

In conclusion, we learned that mustard seeds need more water than we thought and just a little more can make a big difference. We also learned that things like missing a couple days of watering is human error and makes your experiment unreplicable. We look forward to continue talking to you about our second trial.

Olivia, Asha, Cole, and Carmen

 

Jennifer A. B. Hartley
said

Oh!  Have a great camping trip! I just got back from a trip to Florida for a conference at Florida A&M University.  It was nice to get away, and I got to talk about you all to some of our colleagues.  However, coming back we flew through Atlanta, Georgia, in the midst of the storms that affected many of the southeastern states.  We weren't in any danger, but our flights were very delayed.  We're grateful we made it home in one piece.  I hope the weather for your trip is calm and comfortable!

As for your black leaves, are they black, or just a really dark purple?  Some varieties of mustard produce a lot of red/purple pigment called 'anthocyanin'.  Most plants produce some, especially in young branches and leaves because it acts as a sunscreen for the plant while the tissues are soft and vulnerable.  When a plant produces a lot of it alongside the chlorophyll that makes leaves green, the resulting color often does look black at first.  Here's an example: https://www.highmowingseeds.com/organic-non-gmo-red-giant-mustard-greens.html

That said, too much water can promote mold, which can create dark or black spots on leaves too.  I think you'll just need to keep watching and see how they grow.
 

 

    Olivia
    said

    Thank you so much Jennifer,

    I think they were really dark purple.

    Olivia

Olivia
said

Dear Jennifer,

Today we checked on our seeds and the one with the most water grew the least, but is also was the only one that had all six seeds sprout a radicle.

Olivia

Jennifer A. B. Hartley
said

Thanks for the update!  Everything sounds good!  Do you have a different prediction for this experiment as compared to the last one?

    Cole
    said

    We predict that 40 drops of water will be best and I personally think that 50 drops will over water the seeds. We also hope that the seeds grow more than last time and that our watering schedule is going to be better and more thorough

Jennifer A. B. Hartley
said

Hi Team!

Great to hear!  I look forward to hearing how the reboot goes, and whether you get significantly different results this time around.  Your setup sounds good, but I'm curious: how did you decide that 20 drops was the control?  (I am not suggesting that's a bad plan, I'm just wondering.)

    Cole
    said

    Hi! In response to your question, our teacher Jeff said that 20 drops is the control, but I think he means for the groups that aren't focusing on water amounts and for groups that are focusing on different variables.

Olivia
said

Hi Jennifer,

Today we started our new experiment. It is very similar to our first experiment. We still have 4 petri dishes with 6 mustard seeds each. But since our petri dish with 10 drops of water only grew a bit then died we decided to replace it with one with 20 drops of water.  This time we will also have a more regular watering schedule. For the watering, we'll water them 3 times a week, for petri dish 6c5.1, we'll use 20 drops of water and have it be the control dish, 6c5.2 has 30 drops of water, 6c5.3 has 40 drops and 6c5.4 has 50 drops of water.

Olivia

Olivia
said

Dear Jennifer,

Tomorrow we will restart our experiments. We will continue posting about our revised experiment. Today we are preping the petri dishes and soaking our seeds. Tomorrow when we restart our experiments, we'll have 20 drops of water in 1 dish, 30 in another, 40 in another and 50 in the last one. 20 drops of water is the  control. We have 6 mustard seeds in each dish.

Olivia

Cole
updated the project info
said

Hi Team! 

Wow, somehow I missed your messages from Tuesday.  I'm sorry about that!

I checked out the photos Olivia posted, and I see what you mean.  The summaries that Cole and Carmen posted are great summaries of your observations so far. Great job!  Will you continue posting when you do the revised experiment?  I'd love to hear how that goes.

All scientists have to deal with some 'error'-causing circumstances, but plant scientists deal with this kind of thing a LOT.  If they are studying plants that grow outdoors, they are at the mercy of the weather, so sometimes experiments have to be re-run several times before they feel they have the data they need to answer their questions.

And even when that happens. you're still learning important information.  I bet if you decided to grow a garden and knew you couldn't be there to tend it for a week, this experiment would give you some insight into what you might want to do before you leave, right?

Welcome to the life of a scientist! You're in good company. 

Olivia
said

Hi Jennifer,

Today or tomorrow will be the last day of mesuring/watering for our seeds. Next week we will be on spring break and the week after we will start our slightly changed experiment.

Olivia

Cole
said

Dear Jennifer,
When we looked at the seeds today, the one with the least amount of water (6c5.1, 10 drops) looked completely dead and dried up even before our trip, probably because it has a lot less water. It had only a radicle, not a hypocotyl or epicotyl like all the other petri dishes. The one with the second least (6c5.2, 20 drops) water looks like it’s dead and turning brownish, but it could still be just a little alive. The second most water (6c5.3, 30 drops) also looks dead but way less withered and not as brown. The one with the most water (6c5.4, 40 drops) looks alive and very green. It is reaching all the ways to the top of the petri dish and if there was no lid on the dish it would probably grow out and be pretty tall.
Something that could have affected or probably did affect the seeds results is an inconsistent watering schedule. Our plan was to water our plants every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This was disrupted by our overnight trip which caused us to miss 2 watering days. Also we haven't been able to water them every time
We will slightly redesign our experiment and do a second trial in the week after spring break, (which is next week) probably with 20, 30, 40, 50 drops
Cole
 

Carmen
said

Dear Jennifer,
On April 3, 6c5.1 and  6c5.2 looked dead.  6c5.3 also looked dead. They weren’t green and they weren’t very big. They were droopy. When we measured them, there wasn’t any new growth. The good news is that  6c5.4 is still alive and growing. On April 3,  6c5.3 and  6c5.4 roots were turning gray.  6c5.1 and  6c5.2 are sadly dead. 

My group and I think that most of the plants are dead because we were not here to water them from last Tuesday to Monday. The plants are probably dead because they did not get watered for a long time. 

We were gone so we also did not track their growth like we have been doing. We also did not follow our plan. This is our fault not the plant’s error. Our plan was to water the seeds more frequently.

In our new experiment, I suggest we make some changes. One change is to water the seeds more frequently. Since we can’t water on Saturdays and Sundays, we will water it on school days. Should we water the seeds every day? Every other day? What do you think?

Thank you so much,
Carmen
 

Olivia
said

Dear Jennifer,
When we looked at the seeds today, the one with the least amount of water(6c5.1) looked completely dead and dried up even before our trip. It had only a radicle, not a hypocotyl or epicotyl like all the other ones. The one with the second least (6c5.2)water looks like it’s dead and turning brownish. The second most water(6c5.3) also looks dead but less withered and brown. The one with the most water(6c5.4) looks alive and very green. It is reaching all the ways to the top of the petri dish.
Something that could have affected the seeds/results is an inconsistent watering schedule. Originally our watering plan was to water our plants every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This was disrupted by our overnight trip which caused us to miss 2 watering days.
I put this down in my observations as human error. This will probably change the results and we will consider this when writing our conclusion.
We will slightly redesign our experiment and do a second trial in the near future.
Olivia
 

Cole
said

Hi! Olivia has posted photos of our experiment from today. There is one with all petri dishes and one that is germinating the best. It appears that the petri dish with 40 drops of water -the most we put in- has been germinating the best and the radicle has grown to 60mm in only 15 days

said

Hi Team!  

I hope you had fun on your camping trip!  Sorry to hear your seeds look so dismal after a week away, but it's interesting that you can see such a distinct difference between the trials.  Now that you're back and tending to them, it should be neat to see how that second-most-water group responds.  

Scientists have to talk about 'sources of error' in their research.  That doesn't mean they did anything wrong, only that some circumstances beyond their control might have had an impact on their results.  If you get a chance to talk about this in your class, you could point out this week without the ability to water your seeds.

How much longer will you collect data?

Jennifer

    Cole
    said

    Hi! We are collecting the last of the first trials data this week, and then starting the second trial. I think in the second one we are going to change some factors and we won't be gone for a week this time :). We have talked about this in class with our teacher and class, and discussed other things we'll do during the second trial

     

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