Blue Hawk Science Investigators
- Project reviewer
Joined 02 Sep 2023
Project by group tfhsthilmonyposfall2023
Info
| Explore | * The basis Photosynthesis * How plants make food * How to take care of plants * certain plant require certain environment * How they exactly get their energy from the sun. * What plants are best for what area. * What is the purpose of the veins on plants. * Why do different plants... |
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| Research Question | How does dust affect the rate of gas exchange in photosynthesis? This is relevant because plants near dirt roads are exposed to high concentrations of dust then those away from them. High concentrations of dust can inhibit necessary energy needed for photosynthesis. |
| Predictions | If plants are exposed to high concentrations of dust then the rate of photosynthesis will decrease due to the limited amount of sunlight able to reach the plant. Dust particles on the surface of the plant will reflect the light lowering the amount of sunlight able to reach chloroplasts in the... |
| Experimental Design | Create 3 closed systems with no dust in one (control) light dust in one and heavy in the last one. Add soil if needed to keep plants in place. O2 and CO2 percentages will be the variables monitored within each closed system. Keep all systems near each other to avoid temperature and light... |
| Conclusion | If plants are exposed to high levels of dust then it will negatively affect gas exchange and the health of the plant. A possible explanation for this is the dust decreased stomatal conductance and lowered the amount of light the plant was able to absorb which reduced the rate of photosynthesis.... |
| About this Project | Carter and Bryson worked diligently on their project involving dust and it's effects on photosynthesis gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The project was relative to our area with their research question asking if dust affects the rate of photosynthesis when ATV's and other off road... |
Updates
Hello,
This is the last week of communication. I would like to say thank you for all the work you put in and the helpful guidance. Thank you for also making the more complicated things easier to understand and having interest in our project. Have a good holiday season and thank you again for all the help.
I am so glad I could help clarify things for you, have a great school year and I wish you all the best in the holiday season!
Hello Team,
This may be the last time I get to say that but not everything is bad when saying goodbye. I just want to say thank you for all of the help and answers to all of the questions we had. We appreciate all you do and the leadership you have shown through this semester. We now have a better understanding on how sensitive plants are and how they respond to certain stresses. We also have a new understanding of what a scientist does and how different each one can be. I wish you the best with future education and wish you a successful career.
Thank you!
I really loved seeing your guys' project and I am so glad I could help with your questions and teach about the process of science! Have a great rest of the school year!!
Hello
we have posted our final presentation in the files.
Great poster!! Excellent work, team!
Hi, this looks better. Are you able to explain what this graph illustrates? It may be a good idea to try a bunch of different graphs to see what gives you results that are easy to interpret and explain to other people. Maybe something like a bar graph as well just to compare and see which one you like the best!
hello,
Thank you for the suggestion, we finished the new graph and have posted it. We were wondering if this one works?
Hi Carter! After looking at these results, I realize that I made a mistake in the type of statistical test that would be best for you to use. An R2 test looks at the correlation between two continuous quantitative variables (or normal words, both your independent and dependent variables should be numerical and and should be able fall anywhere within a plot on a graph).
Instead, because you have three categorical values (these being your three treatment groups), I think the best test to use would be an ANOVA (ANalysis Of VAriance) test. This test looks at the difference between the medians of your treatments, and determines if they are statistically different from one another. A great way to visualize this test is to create a boxplot where the X axis is your three treatments and the Y axis is the O2 concentration values.
If you would like me to explain what the results of your ANOVA means, I can definitely do that. Let me know when you make the boxplot and we can then make a really good analysis of your results that would be super fun to share with your friends and family (if you're a nerd like me)!
Hello,
We have posted a screenshot of our correlation calculations in files and we were wondering if it looks correct?
We were wondering your opinion on this idea, would doing a correlation with CO2 levels being the dependent variables and the scale of dust levels being the independent variable be okay? Or would there be a better way to go about doing a statistical test?
Yes, doing a correlation coefficient between those two variables would be a good test to see if there is a strong relationship between the variables. You would be looking at the R2 value, which tells you how much of your data (dependent variable) is explained by the treatment (independent variable). Great idea!
When we applied the dust it only hit the top side of the leaves and did not affect the underside where the stomata are located and the dust had the same effect on both plants no matter the amount. Our other thought was that dust only has an effect on gas exchange to a certain point and then past that point has no further effect on it.
Good hypotheses, because you see such close results between the medium dust and no dust, it might be a good idea to just combine those results together and compare them to the control group. I'm not completely sure, but it might make your results more significant. Will you be doing any statistical tests on this data to see if the differences in O2 output between the control and treatment groups are statistically significant?
We have finished our conclusion with claim-evidence-reasoning criteria and posted it above.
Very nice! I also noticed that there was not much of a difference between the medium and heavy dust groups. Any idea why that might be? Any hypotheses?
Hello,
One of the things we noticed was that the container with no dust seemed to have more drastic fluctuations in gas levels compared to the heavy dust container. We also posted our finished table in the files section.
Hello,
We have just finished collecting the data on the plants, hopefully we will have the table finished by today or tomorrow. Here are some pictures of plant health after the experiment.
Wow this setup looks very cool! I know you haven't analyzed your data or completed the graphs yet, but have you noticed any trends so far just by looking at it?
We have attached the data from the first 18 hours of the experiment in the files and it shows how we will be collecting the data. We are taking 1 sample every 6 hours for five days.
Hello everyone,
We added a couple pictures of our experiment setup. We have started to collect data and hopefully by today we should have some of the table filled out.
Hi team,
We have posted our experimental design and are setting up the experiment now. Hopefully start collecting data tomorrow and it will go for 5 days.
Sounds great! I am excited to see how it turns out!