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!

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

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

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.
 

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

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

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!

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

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.
 

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

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

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.)

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

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

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. 

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

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
 

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
 

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
 

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

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

Hi Jennifer,

Today we watered our plants they haven't been watered since last monday. The 2 with the least water look completely dead, and the one with the 2nd most water looks like it's dying. The one with the most water still looks alive and very healthy. I think that the seeds detached so it is now hard to measure the radicle.

Thanks,

Olivia

Hi Jennifer,

I forgot to tell you we will be gone tuesday-friday. There is a chance that we will be able to water on friday. We are going on a camping trip for school.

Olivia

Hi Jennifer,

I am pretty sure the hairs aren't mold. When we checked our plants today. The 2 ones with the most water have sprouted green leaves. There are some black ones but I think it might just be the underside of the leaves. Are mustard leaves black on the underside? the one with the least water only has very small roots and the one with the second least has roots and kinda withered looking leaves.

Olivia

Hmmm...   It's hard to say without seeing them.  Sometimes roots put out little root hairs to better absorb water, but depending on how it looks it could be mold too.  

Hi Jennifer,

I don't think anyone will be able to water our seeds on on the days we are gone but I am not positive. Today we checked on our seeds. 5/6 of the seed sprouted in 3 petri dishes and 6/6 in the other one. The 2 with the most water are sprouting leaves and the ones with the 3 most water have green on their roots. Also most of the roots have some fuzzy stuff on them. Is that normal for mustard seeds.

Thanks,

Olivia

Hi Teams!

Welcome back! We heard you had a great Pi Day celebration! I see you've developed research questions and designed your experiments, and I highly encourage you to reach out to your mentors with any questions along the way. Can't wait to see your seeds germinate!

Hi all!

Good!  Will someone be able to water your seeds for you on the days you're gone?  Petri dishes tend to dry out fast unless you happen to live in a really humid place.

As long as we're on the subject, I have to be gone on Friday too.  We are attending a conference in Florida, and I have to present there to other scientists who teach at colleges and community colleges all across the United States. I'm pretty nervous, but it will be nice to be in Florida where the weather is 80 degrees.  Wish me luck!

I hope wherever you're going this week and next is someplace fun. :)

Hi Jennifer,

Today we started our experiment. We are using mustard seed and there are 6 seeds in each petri dish. We are changing the factor of water. Our control plants will get 20 drops of water on Monday, Wendsday, and Friday. The other ones will get 10, 30, and 40 drops every Monday, Wendsday, and Friday. We will not be here to water them this Friday and next Wendsday and Friday.

Hi Olivia, Cole, and Carmen!

Sorry to arrive late to the conversation here.  Ana (your class's liaison) asked if I could step in as mentor, for your team.   My name is Jen, and I work for the Botanical Society of America.  I was actually a teacher myself for quite a few years; I taught high school and middle school (teaching 6th grade was my favorite!), and worked for the Missouri Botanical Garden heading their school programs team, which means I planned field trips and training for teachers on how to use plants and gardens with their classes. I'm now a second career graduate student with the University of Miami, and I'm doing research on ecology and citizen science.  It's a lot of fun, plus I get to work with some amazing botanists in my job.

It sounds like Olivia and Cole are really interested in sea life!  Living in San Francisco probably gives you lots of access to the ocean; here in Missouri we're pretty far from the coast.  I do live right on the Missouri River, though, and we do have otters here!  They're just river otters, not sea otters. 

Carmen, I would love to hear more about your clothing brand!  What a neat project!

From your posts so far, I can see you're doing some great research right now.  You've clearly learned the terms for the different parts of a dicot embryo.  Ana gave you some great answers so far, but if there's more about those topics you want to ask about, I'm happy to answer.  I'm looking forward to working with you!

Hello Teams!

It's been really great to see you all asking insightful questions of your mentors as you explore your topic. Soon, we hope to see your project goals and research questions. Keep up the great work!

Dear Mentor,

Today we were learning about seeds in science class. We made a chart that had things we wonder about seeds and things we know. I feel like I know a little bit about seeds and I do have some questions. I know that seeds grow into plants, but does every seed grow into a plant?? What is the process of growth? What do seeds need to grow?

One thing I know about seeds is that beans are seeds too. Today we made a sketch of the parts of a bean seed. We learned the structure of a seed like the embryo.

Dear Mentor,

Today in class we learned about the parts of a dicot seed. We learned about the Seed Coat, the Cotyledon, the Epicotyl, the Hypocotyl, and the Radicle. I know that there are two types of seeds: monocots and dicots. But I don’t know the difference, what is the difference? I also know that all plants grow from seeds, all fruits have seeds, and some seeds are edible. I wonder how you get seeds for vegetables, if all plants have seeds and how hydroponics work. Feel free to answer any or all of my questions.

Look forward to hearing for you,

Olivia

Hi my name is Carmen. I really enjoy surfing, skiing, basketball, swimming, rock climbing, dancing, and trying to bake with my bff and twin Georgia. One fun fact about me is that me and my twin Georgia have a sustainable fashion brand named Comfy Fancy. Another fun fact about me is that I used to live in Colorado and go skiing everyday after school. I also like to play the guitar and piano. I don’t have that much to say about my science life. I sort of just started having a science class because at my old school they just taught history class instead of science. Learning about the periodic table of elements and the earth's mantle has been challenging for me because it is hard to not have science class for one year and miss what these teachers have been teaching at this school then come here and learn about all of it. Although it was hard it was interesting to learn about something I had no clue on before but know I do. I am really excited to start learning about plants and how they are related to science. I am also excited to maybe plant in a garden. Thank you for reading this, anyway this is me (Carmen).

Hi. My name is Cole. I’m in 6th grade at San Francisco Friends School. I really like animals and seeing them and playing with them, especially dogs and cats. I don’t have either a dog nor a cat because my dad is allergic to all animals with hair. I also really like sea life and I love swimming and doing things in water, even just sitting there. I love the water and how it feels. I’m also very big on watching youtube, because I don't have the money for certain things, but youtubers do, so I feel like I'm there opening the present, playing the game, and doing whatever else. I just love youtube and it’s so fun to watch. Something that probably takes up a quarter of my life of importance for me is music. I don’t play an instrument, but I love listening to songs and doing all kinds of things with it such as mix songs, put new beats in songs, and more. 

One time I was doing some really cool and fun science was in 5th grade, and we were making bridges that were 80 inches in width, 30 inches up from the ground and only used rubber bands and popsicle sticks. We were then going to test how much wait it could hold. Ours came in 3rd or 4th place out of around 20 groups or so. It was so fun!

Alright, I’m going to wrap up my introduction letter. Thanks for reading! I look forward to talking to you about plants and science. Have a good day!

-Cole

My name is Olivia. I am a 6th grader at a friends school. I moved to this school this year. I like the color blue and the ocean. My hobbies are cooking, baking, drawing, and reading. I don’t just enjoy drawing, but most forms of art. I especially like reading fantasy books, books with fairy tales and mythology (especially Greek) incorporated into the modern world, and graphic novels. My favorite type of weather is when it’s raining or snowing or if it’s just cold in general. I dislike hot and sunny weather. I also dislike fancy clothes and getting dressed up. I play the piano, play soccer, and do ballet. What do you do for fun?

I am interested in the ocean and the animals that live in it. I especially like Marine mammals and Sea turtles. My favorite animals are sea otters. I like working in my garden. There is something eating the tomatoes plants and other things from the roots, but is leaving flowers and things with a strong scent behind. We have tried putting wire mesh gopher cages around the roots and it still chews through that. Do you have any idea what it is?

If I were to describe myself in a couple sentences, I would say that my favorite thing to do is read, and I like the color blue and the ocean, especially marine mammals like sea otters. I am looking forward to learning a thing or two about plants and working with you.

Hi everyone!

It's so great to see all your introductions and get to know you a little bit. I'm very excited for the things you are learning about seeds. Can't wait to see your project plans soon!

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.

Hi everyone!

I'm Ana, and I will be your liaison for this session. My job is to help you and your mentors stay in touch. I'm also a mentor for one team (Hi 6c6!). It's really great to see all of you introduce yourselves and get to know everyone your class.

Take some time next week to start developing your projects, and then fill out the project description on your team pages. Can't wait to see what you all do!