| Explore | Experiences: Amelie: I once overheard my mom talking about chill hours, apparently they are the amount of hours a plant has to be under 40 degrees. I also know they come out of seeds, which have to be buried a certain amount underground. Angelo: Something I know about plants for outside of school is that the seeds of the plants have seeds inside of them Nate: They have leaves and roots, they suck up water and use it to perform photosynthesis. In addition, all plants require different conditions. Some need more moisture in the soil than others. Some need more sunlight than others, but all have basic needs like soil, water, and carbon dioxide. Kai: Seeds are green sometimes, and most of the time they have veins. Something else I know about seeds is that they help the environment by making trees, which filter carbon dioxide into oxygen. Background Research: Amelie: In class, I found out that seeds have different parts: the epicotyl, hypocotyl, radicle, seed coat, and the cotyledon. I also learned that the reason the seeds have to be buried a certain way is because they all need different amounts of sun to “germinate”, which is basically getting ready to grow. After thinking about it, I also learned that we eat a lot of seeds. Personally, I really like edamame, peas, and beans. I have learned a ton more, so much that I can’t cover it all, but I’m excited to learn more and research more to answer some more questions I have. Nate: What I already know is that seeds have different parts such as the seed coat, radicle, endosperm, and more. The radicle is what first pushes up against the soil, and since there is no sun in the dirt, the endosperm is the food until it reaches the sun. Kai: I discovered Cooksonia is often called the earliest known fossil of a vascular land plant, and dates from just 425 million years ago! in the late Early Silurian. It is a small plant, only 3 centimeters high. Its leafless stems had sporangia (spore-producing structures) at their tips. |
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| Research Question | We want to research competition between different types of seeds. This will hopefully answer the following questions: - Is the competition different when there are different types of seeds competing? > We know that certain seeds can exert poison when they feel like they have a lot of competition, but what about seeds that don’t have poison? > Competition can be about many things such as light, space, and nutrients. What if a seed doesn’t need that much light, but needs a lot of space? We could use this question as an opportunity to find out what seeds need. - What if the seeds don’t have poison that they can use to eliminate the other plants that they are competing against, how will they compete? > We know that certain seeds can release poison that will affect the germination of other plants. But we don’t know what else they can do if they don’t have poison. - If we do something to one seed, but not to the other, will that have an effect on the competition? > We know that burning, cutting, chill hours, and temperature can affect seeds germination. We also know that competition can be for light, space, and nutrients. So what if we cut, or damage some seeds? Will that affect competition? - What else do plants compete for? > We know that plants compete for sunlight and soil, but what else? |
| Predictions | Possible outcomes/hypotheses: - I think that, if answering question 1, it depends on the seed type. This means that if a seed does not have poison, it will most likely not survive. > Many seeds don’t have poison, which is why I think it depends on the seed type. And, well, if none of them have poison then they’d compete by growing fastest because they might be competing for land. - Regarding question 2, if none of the seeds have poison, I’d assume they’d race to get the biggest roots and take control of the space as soon as they can. > And, well, if none of them have poison then they’d compete by growing fastest because they might be competing for land. - For question 3, I think that if we hurt the seeds, it depends where. If, for example, we cut them at the place where they make the poison, that might damage the poison they make, which will lead to them not being able to produce it. > If we damage important parts of the seed, the seed will probably suffer permanent damage, which will mean that the seed won’t be able to do certain things. (I think) - For question 4, I have no idea. It’s possible that water could be one but I’m not sure. > I think that water could be something plants compete over because it’s one of the main needs of plants, but only in an area where water isn’t as abundant. For example, I don’t think that plants will be competing over water in a rainforest, but definitely in a desert. |
| Experimental Design | In our petri dishes we have these seeds: In 6B3.6 we have our control, one radish seed In 6B3.5 we have 10 radish seeds and 10 mustard seeds In 6B3.4 we have 3 radish seeds and 4 mustard seeds In 6B3.3 we have 3 radish seeds and 3 mustard seeds In 6B3.2 we have 15 radish seeds and 15 mustard seeds In 6B3.1 we have 1 radish seed and 1 mustard seed We are watering our seeds 15 drops Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (This has changed because we were on a trip for a week) We want to see if any seed is affected by seeds around them. |
| Conclusion | The results of our experiments are not very trustable, because of human error. But we did our best to write a conclusion. In the end, we learned how seeds can be affected by crowding, ending up in a hypothesis. We don’t know whether to trust our data though because we were on break most of the time. Our hypothesis was that the seeds grow faster in the more crowded ones, because they want to take up the most space the fastest. We also learned that changes in the plan can change the results-- even in the smallest way. If we could do something differently, it would probably be to plan better, by planning watering days on days we won’t be absent. We also think we could simplify our plan more. Perhaps by removing mustard seeds? We didn’t have many outliers, but there were two petri dishes that were crowded, and they were growing really fast. We were not able to follow our plan, because of breaks. It changed so many factors, and I don’t think that we will be able to trust the data. We will put this down as human error. We do have a few questions after this: How fast will the seeds grow this time? Will the seeds be able to grow? |
| Investigation Theme | WOS |
| Teacher Name | Jeff Porter |
| School Name | San Francisco Friends School |
| Session | Spring 2023 |