This is are last day of Planting Science so we'd like to say thank you for helping us and giving suggestions. We had a lot of fun and we were glad to have such great and helpful mentors!

Hey guys, we hope the suggestions were helpful for your project. I just wanted to check on you guys to see if everything turned out alright. It's been a pleasure working with you all on the project, and I hope you all had an educational and fun experience working on your own project! If you have any questions that you need to ask us, we'll still be checking back in to answer them! Please don't hesitate to message us!

Looks like you are in the final stages of your projects
It’s great to see that teams from your school are wrapping up and posting conclusions. Enjoy the final stages of your project, and feel free to post any final comments or questions you have for your mentors. 

Farewell and Best Wishes
As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community. 

Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share. 

Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Research Gallery Archive anytime (Found under Community>Projects) to view this project in the future. You can search the Archive by key word, team name, topic, or school name.

Good bye for now. 
Warm regards,
The PlantingScience team

Hey guys, sorry for the late reply! I checked out the lab report and it looked good. I do have some suggestions to offer for editing, 

For your inquiry question, I would suggest rewording it. For example, you could say "If conditions are kept constant, will different seeds have (different or similar) germination rates?" The hypothesis could be something that goes off of this so you could say "because of _____ (an educated guess on why you think the germination rate will either change or be similar) we hypothesize that the seeds will have (different or similar) germination rates.

Additionally I would add some more details in the step-by-step portion (e.g how much water you added, how many seeds you added to each plot- even though this is mentioned in the results I personally think it would be a great idea to add it in the step-by-step section as well).

For the data, I would suggest you guys putting each observation for different seed types in separate columns so it is easier to read. If you were to do this, your 4 columns could be : Days | Alfalfa Observation | Buckwheat Observation | Millet Observation.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

Ok, thank you.

Thanks for sending your lab report and images! We will take a look at it within the next day, and make some comments.

Congratulations you guys! Your experiment looked great and it seems like you got some good data. We look forward to seeing your lab report!

Hey guys, that's fantastic! We're so glad that you guys have been able to learn about designing experiments and asking good questions that interests each of you! Thank you for the project information, it seems that you guys learned quite a lot. Is there anyway you could share your data with us that you used for your lab report?

YaaaY! We have finished our lab report. We will share with you our completed lab report after the weekend.

Those are great questions to ask guys! Will you all use the same seed types from your last experiment? Also some things to consider: We talked a bit about making sure you have a control and hold all things constant except for the variable you are testing. Depending on the question you want to ask, your controls will be different. Can you guys also tell us what you expect your control to be in your new experiment?

Hey guys, nice work with the first experiments! Thanks for the explanation, that helped us with the interpretation of the results. So, first off, were you guys accounting for two variables to test your hypothesis that different seed types promote plant growth at different rates? To my understanding your variables were when the plants had sprouted and the plant heights. Does this sound correct?

Since our previous lab has a conclusion we have decided upon two new questions, and we would like to pick one them to investigate and/or study. Those three questions are:

1.  Can the same plant be watered with different liquids and still grow the same and be healthy?

and...

2. Which plants would take the longest to die if you stopped watering them or putting them under the sun or another light source?

We realize you guys probably couldn't read our data chart so were just going to explain it. For about a week now we have been recording the growth of our three plants alfalfa, millet, and buckwheat. The buckwheat has grown the tallest, the alfalfa has the most seeds sprouted and the millets has just a little less sprouted. You can see the effects of phototropism in our plants, because most of them are leaning towards the windowsill where they get their sunlight. Our buckwheat sprouted last but grew the tallest. The alfalfa sprouted first and had the most seeds sprout, but its height is the shortest of the three. Millet grew second and its height grew in between the height of the other two. We have concluded from our results that most plants grow at different rates than each other.

Hey, your data collection looks good to me! Will you guys be making a figure out of your final data (ex. bar graph, line graph, pie chart, etc.)?

Sorry, it is hard to read, but here is the data.

Hey guys, great progress so far! Your plants are looking great! Please continue to update us on how your experiment is going. We love all of your pictures thus far. As Danish said, a picture for how your data is being taken/what results you have collected so far would be great to share. Keep up the great work!

Hey guys, that sounds great! Your experiment looks to be going along nicely to me! Could you possibly send us a picture of how you are taking your data down? 

Our experiment is going well. Almost all of the alfalfa seeds have sprouted, the millet has a couple sprouting seeds, and our buckwheat has just started to sprout, but there isn't a lot.

We are two days in to our experiment, and our alfalfa and millet seeds have already sprouted, our lab is going well so far!

Hey guys, it looks good so far! Something I would suggest is rewording the inquiry question a bit. As stated, it seems like you're saying that the seeds themselves will change the rate of germination. You should maybe try and word it in a way that says that seed germination rates differ based off certain environmental factors. You could possibly ask: Will different species of seeds have a different germination rate?

For your hypothesis you can follow the shape of "If ____then ____" statements, but its not necessary. Your hypothesis should include both an independent variable (the factor you change in an experiment-- in this case the seed types) and a dependent variable (the factor you observe or measure in an experiment-- in this case the germination rate). As stated your hypothesis is very good but I think by adding a short reason why you think germination rate will be different, your hypothesis would be even better. Making a good hypothesis can be a difficult task (I used to always have trouble writing a good one). However, every good research project stems from a good hypothesis so it is important!

Your materials section looks good to me!

For your step by step part, you should add how much water you are adding to each plant , how many seeds you are adding, and how much soil you are adding (remember that the amounts should all remain the same for all plants). You should also mention how often you will be checking the plants and taking data. Since it is a step by step portion, details are great!

For your data section, it may help if you add if you're using graphs to represent the data (if applicable). 

Everything else looks great to me! I can't wait to hear back from you guys on how the experimentation is going!

Have a great day you guys! If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask us!

Some links to help out:

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Hypothesis

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/2010/02/a-strong-hypothesis.php

Our lab procedure- please give your opinion

Pscience Lab Procedure

Inquiry Question: Will different seeds change the germination rate?

Hypothesis: Yes, each seed will have a different germination rate.

Materials: Alfalfa, nasturtium, peas, soybean, millet, buckwheat, water, soil, and a pot for each.

Step-by-step: Plant each seed in a pot with water and soil and wait for results.

Data: Calculate the germination rate for each seed.

Not a problem, thank you for clarifying that with us. Great choice for the experiment topic! Keep in mind what your variable will be in the experiments (in this case the seed type), and try to maintain all of your other factors as constant. You want to make sure the variable that you are changing is linked directly to your results. Changing anything else other than what you are testing for could potentially affect your results. We realize that you guys will be starting to make observations and record your data by Tuesday. Could you share with us your procedure so that we follow along what you guys did to set up your experiment? We can give you some tips as you guys carry out your tests!

Sorry for the misunderstanding. We worded the second question weirdly, and we are only doing one lab out of our two, which is the second one. For the second one we are planning to see if different seeds have different rates of germination for our lab.

Hey guys, you have some great ideas and ambitions, but I think in the time that you have, you guys might want to narrow your focus a bit. There are a lot of variables that you have for one lab, so it might be difficult to interpret a relationship between each variable and the effect on the seed germination. Danish and I, have talked and we thought of a suggestion that you guys could consider.

For the first question, you could keep everything constant except for the liquid type (make sure you keep the volume of the liquids the same for each plant), and then compare the results.

For the second question, there are a lot of variables to test. It would probably be best to test one of the variables on a different seed type, while keeping everything else the same. For example, if you wanted to see how a specific soil type affects different seeds, you would keep the same soil type, but test different seed types. This way, I think testing would be more manageable for you guys. If you guys need more clarification, please don't hesitate to write us, and we will answer as soon as possible.

 Thank you for your responses Danish and Steven. Yes, we are planning to do a lab that tests how different seeds react to different factors of germination, such as light, soil, and/or moisture.

Hey guys, great questions that you guys came up with. Keep in mind an important tip: you need to think about having a control group for your experiments. A control group is an experiment in which you don't change or add anything to. You want to use it as a baseline to compare your other experiment groups to.

Have you guys come up with how you plan on designing your experiments?  What particular liquids do you plan on using?

For the first experiment, here is a link that you might find helpful in designing how you will set up your experiment.

https://www.teachervision.com/seeds-and-pollination/which-liquids-do-seeds-grow-best

Hope this helps, and keep us posted! I look forward to seeing you guys progress in your experiments.

Hi guys, to answer the second question,different factors of germination do differ from different seed types. Some examples of factors of germination that may differ in different seeds can be soil properties, water availability, and light exposure (some plants are better adapted in growing in darker conditions meaning that they need less light exposure to grow successfully). Are you wanting to test out how different seeds respond to germination factors or how different factors impact germination of a seed? 

We have 2 questions for the upcoming project. 1st question: is there an alternative liquid besides water suitable for germination? 2nd question: Do the factors of germination differ between different seeds?

Hey Chris,Mitchell, and Noah, pleased to meet you! I realize that you all have been doing some research on seed germination this past week. It's a great topic to look into. By any chance, have you all looked into what types of questions on seed germination you would like your project to try to answer? If so, please feel free to share! I look forward to talking about it with you.

Hi guys my name is Danish (like the pastry). Along with Steven, I will also be one of your mentors. I am a junior at Austin College studying in science. What get's me really excited about science is learning about the mechanics of how things work around you. Going off of what Steven said, my favorite plant is surely the Venus Flytrap-- I find it fascinating how the plant "hunts" prey. I too look forward to hearing from you all and working with you guys on the project! Again, if you guys have any questions please ask, we will gladly help!

-Danish P.