PCH_S08_004 :: PlantingScience.org :: fostering student research through scientific inquiry and online mentorship

Sleeping Dragons/ Pershing County High School / PCH_S08_004

School Level: High School
Print this hello

Research Information

Research Question
Our research question(s) are: Is height of plants a hereditary trait? (we are thinking of breeding a short plant with a tall paltn and we are wondering what we are going to get). Our other question is: Is the color of the stem a hereditary trait? (we want to breed a pruple-stemmed plant with a green stemmed plant and we are also wondering what we will get).

Research Predictions
We predict based on our past experiences with the plants, that there will be more leaves on the brassica and arabidopsis. We also believe that plant height effects how many leaves there are. If taller the plant produces more seeds and leaves. The numbe

Experimental Design
We are going to remove extra plants so that we only have two remaining plants per container. We are going to breed the tallest plant with the shortest plant to test our first question. Then we are going to breed a purple stemmed plant with a green stemmed plant to test our second question.

Research Conclusions
Our conclusion is as follows:
In reference to our research question about plant stem color, we have conluded that green is the dominant color. We have based this idea on our observation of the petri dishes, in which we fast germinated plants bred to test stem color. We predicted that green would be the dominant stem color at the beginning of the experiment, as that was the most common stem color we saw.

In reference to our research question of the possibility of height being a hereditary trait that may be passed onto offspring, we realize that we would have to continue testing our specimens to fully see the results of the research question. We also predicted that height would be a genetically passed on trait, but we cannot fully affirm whether it is or is not.

In relation to the stem color testing, we were successful in seeing the results of our research question. We have concluded from our research that stem color could deffinatly be a genetic factor and green is the dominant color. As for the height question, we would need to continue testing our offspring and possibly further generations
to fully see the results.

Comments

Only logged in users are allowed to comment. register/log in


	April 9, 2008 \| 1:15 AM \| Heather Thanks and Best Wishes A belated farewell to Sleeping Dragons, I am on the PlantingScience staff. Thank you for sharing your research project with us. We hope you are going away with some new insights about how science works, and confidence that you can easily take on new challenges of doing it and making sense of it. There are a lot of fascinating research questions---just waiting for young investigators to join in the fun. I like that you realized in the end that you may need more testing to affirm your results. That's science, it always leads to more questions and experiments! Perhaps we'll see you again sometime soon. All best wishes for the remainder of your school year. I hope that there might be a budding scientist in your group! Dr. Williams, thank you for taking the time to mentor. Heather Cacanindin


	March 28, 2008 \| 5:18 AM \| Dr. Claire Hemingway final ppt presentation posted here Hi, i've uploaded your final presentation here. Thanks for your excellent work.


	March 19, 2008 \| 12:47 AM \| chemistry (Team Member) Paul Thank you very much for the help you have given us. We are very much looking forward to sending you our results. :)


	March 18, 2008 \| 11:56 PM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Great journaling and photos of your 'Little Guys'!I am looking forward to your report. Sleeping Dragons:Great journaling and photos of your 'Little Guys'!I am looking forward to your report.If your pictures make the size of your reports too big in bits to send, you could downsize each picture to about 50-100 KB before attaching or inserting them into your report? The same for any graphs or tables. This should keep the total size of your report to a managable-transmissable size. Coach Paul


	March 14, 2008 \| 12:58 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) Paul Thank you for the compliments! We are going to put up a new journal to detail how we put the petri dishes togeter and another one on our new observations of what we call the "little guys". Thank you!


	March 13, 2008 \| 5:26 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons: I am dissapointed too, for you, but your analysis of the results is teriffic! Sleeping Dragons: I am dissapointed for you too , but your analysis of the results in your journal is teriffic! In science, somtimes your experiment doesn't turn out as you expected or hoped for, but as you have aready learned, you can turn enexpected results into important learning experiences. You have demonstrated to me that you have learned much about how science is carried out. And that you understand some important concepts relating to the interdependence of mother and offspring development. From the photos of your pods, it looked like the maternal tissues were well developed by the time you took the plants off the water. I think you are right, the embryos were not sufficiently far along at the time they were arrested in their development that they could develop into a seed. Your experiment demonstrates just how dependent embryo development is on the health of the mother plant. And that is an important biological concept and fact. I like very much that your colleagues are sharing their seeds with you. Let me know how things turn out. Coach Paul


	March 12, 2008 \| 1:10 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) New Journal We have posted a new journal detailing the results of our seed germination. Thank you.


	March 11, 2008 \| 1:01 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Results :( Unfortunately, we had a lot of pods, but when we opened them yesterday we found them completely empty. :( We were told that this is called parthenocarpy "seedless fruit". We are very disappointed with our seed production, but will be following the results of another group who are studying the same phenotypic trait of stem color.


	March 7, 2008 \| 12:50 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Arapidopsis and Barley Unfortunately we were not able to get any growth on the replant of the arapidposis or barley. We tried another two times for each plant but were still unsuccessful! We were all very frustrated since we tried our best to get something to grow and talked to Mrs. McLean about it. She told us that since we tried so hard and nothing seemed to be working that we should just concentrate on the Brassica, since those are our developing plants. :( We all wished we could've had something, but it just wasn't working out... Thank you very much.


	March 5, 2008 \| 12:50 AM \| Dr. Lawrence R. Griffing (Scientist/Mentor) Any luck yet with Arabidopsis and Barley? Were you able to get growth on the replant? Cheers, Coach Larry


	February 28, 2008 \| 12:03 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) picture captions Our picture captions as of late are labed as day 32, but they are really from day 33. Thank you


	February 27, 2008 \| 11:57 PM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Paul Thank you! We are very happy with our progress as of late and are glad to hear that we are on the right track.


	February 27, 2008 \| 11:24 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Excellent! Sleeping Dragons:Excellent! Thanks for the explaination of your choice of Friday March 7 as the day to remove your plants from water. You are right on track! Coach Paul


	February 26, 2008 \| 12:40 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) Water We decided on next friday the 7th because that will be 20 day since we pollinated. We had a dissucsion as a class and decided that last time we took the palnts off water to early kind of like at the end of the first trimester. Therefor we have decied that 20 days will be more efficent to getting more seed production and the seeds will have more time to develop in the pods. We hope this will give us a higher seed producton than last time around. thank you.


	February 26, 2008 \| 12:04 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Dr. Paul We think the ones that are the fattest and the greenest with the large bumps in them are the ones that have the embryos in them. We are very happy to see so many of them. We decided on the seventh of March after discussing it with Mrs. McLean as a class. Thank you.


	February 25, 2008 \| 10:59 PM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Good to hear from you. Sleeping Dragons:Good to hear from you. Thanks for the great day 30 closeup photos of your pod development. Which ones do you think have developing embryos in them? How did you decide that Friday (date?) was the day that you would be taking the plants off water? Coach Paul


	February 25, 2008 \| 12:17 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Watering It has been decided that we will be taking the plants off of the reservoirs next Friday. Thank you.


	February 22, 2008 \| 12:09 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Good to hear from you. Sleeping Dragons:Good to hear from you. I'm glad you had a chance to check out the web references I suggested. For the 1st one drop the ? mark and try it again. It worked for me. You may be familiar with it as you were with ref #2. Ref #3 is really only something for you to think about as you observe your pods( mothers) enlarge to support the development of the embryos within them. The questions on those small cards are designed to have you think a little more about what your choices of pollination (mating) might result in. Coach Paul


	February 21, 2008 \| 1:04 PM \| Lyssa (Team Member) links Hi Dr. Paul I looked over your links myself - the first one didn't work. The second one looked familiar and I think we got it as a printed handout from Mrs. McLean. I don't understand the third link, though. The group and I will walk through them together Monday, though. Thank you.


	February 21, 2008 \| 1:11 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Dr. Paul We spoke to Mrs. McLean just this morning and she told us to go ahead and take a look at your research before we take our plants off the water. We don't have much time to look at it today but we will look at the sites over the weekend and will respond to you. Thank you


	February 21, 2008 \| 12:41 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Thanks for your quick response! Sleeping Dragons:Thanks for your quick response! By all means, please discuss my caution with Mrs McLean as it could affect other teams as well. Coach Paul


	February 21, 2008 \| 12:15 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Response to your caution We were told by Mrs. McLean that we would be taking the plants off the water on Monday, as to my understanding. We will take a look at your reccomendations, but the post about taking the plants off the water was in relation to what our teacher told us we as a class would be doing. If that is wrong, we will correct the error, but as I understood it, those were our instructions. Thank you


	February 20, 2008 \| 7:40 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Big important caution!!! Sleeping Dragons:Big important caution!!! In reading your response to Dr Larry, I note that you plan to take you Brassicas off water on Monday. Please read carefully my earlier notes of today to you, and rethink when you will take the plants off water. Let me know what you conclude. Coach Paul


	February 20, 2008 \| 1:03 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Dr. Paul Thank you for the great links! We are very interested in them, but unfortuantely do not have time to look at them right at this moment. We will be taking a look at them ASAP. (we are taking a lot of notes in class at the moment, which is why we aren't looking at the links straight away). Thank you!


	February 20, 2008 \| 12:53 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Dr. Larry We are basically done growing our brassica. We will be taking them off the water reservoirs on Monday so that we can dry them out and collect the seeds. Thank you.


	February 20, 2008 \| 12:40 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons: Comments on your great observations,and pictures. Sleeping Dragons: Comments on your great observations,and pictures. Check out the chart at; http://www.fastplants.org/img/sandbox/uploads/61.file.pdf ? Full term for embryo development is 20 days after the last pollination, DAP, if the environment for growth and development has been within the optimal range for temperature. Has it? Check out; http://www.fastplants.org/sandbox.php?entry_id=87#menu. At 20 DAP you can pour out the reservoir water and let the plants dry down for another 5-7 days before harvesting and counting your seeds. In evolutionary biology, seed count is referred to as 'reproductive sucess'. Can you estimate your reproductive sucess now, then wait until you harvest your seeds from the pods in about 20 days from now and compare the two sets of data? For some ways of looking at seed pods and of thinking about them, check out my 'Sandbox' at http://www.fastplants.org/sandbox.php?entry_id=52#menu . Coach Paul


	February 19, 2008 \| 6:16 AM \| Dr. Lawrence R. Griffing (Scientist/Mentor) Great to hear of success It sounds like the pollination worked. This will be very exciting to see what the offspring look like! How long do you expect to grow this F1 generation?


	February 19, 2008 \| 12:54 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) more pollination stuff After observing we have concluded that we have 4 “pregnant” pods, and 4 “non-pregnant” pods in the class type of our Brassica. We also have 31 “pregnant” pods and 7 “non-pregnant” pods in our mutant type brassica. We think they are pregnant because they are obviously swelling and we can see the little seed bumps beneath the skin of the pod.


	February 19, 2008 \| 12:39 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) Question When do we take our plants off the water so they can dry?


	February 19, 2008 \| 12:22 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Pollinations from my observations our pollinations have been very successful. Practically every member has swollen pods and we are expecting a good turn out of seeds. We're all very excited at this latest development. Mrs. McLean is having us count our "pregnant pods" today in class. Thank you.


	February 19, 2008 \| 12:14 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons:Good observations on your drying pot problem. What are the results of your pollinations? Sleeping Dragons: Good observations on your drying pot problem. Based on your observations and answers to my questions, my best deduction of your drying pot problem is that some of the algae (green slimy material) growing in your reservoir have produced a slimy mucilage that has prevented capillary waterflow from the reservoir to the plants. This sometime happens to me also. When it does, I wash out the reservoir and poke a second wick into the soil in the pot next to the first one. This usually works. What are the results of your pollinations? By now you should know wether your pollinations have been sucessful or not. From this time on you will see evidence of embryo development in the pistils as their continued elongation and enlargemant. Can you determine whether you have been successful pollinators or not? As a scientist I take data on each flower I pollinate by measuring pod length and estimating the number of ovules that I think have developing embryos in them. Hint; count the 'bumps' on the enlarging pods. Let me know how successful you have been as pollinators. Coach Paul


	February 15, 2008 \| 12:16 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) answers to Dr. Paul Hi, Dr. Paul. We'll do our best to answer your questions with as much detail as possible. 1) Yes, there was water in the reservoirs. 2) No, the reservoir had not run out of water. 3) Yes, all of the pot wicks were in the water. 4) Yes, the wicks of all the plants were in the water. (Even the drying plants). 5) No, it does not look like some of the wicks were not functioning to bring water to the plants. All of the wicks are wet, as is the soil in the cups. 6) Yes, the pot with the drying plants had a slimy substance growing in them. We think it's algae. We have cleaned out the pots and redid them. Thank you.


	February 14, 2008 \| 12:53 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Claire Hemmingway Well, since our class groups come in at diffferent times of the morning we haven't noticed any others drying up. We cross the shortest plant with the tallest plant in each container. The tallest measure with the shortest measure.


	February 13, 2008 \| 11:11 PM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons: Good to hear from you in your journal. Solutions to 'drying out' Sleeping Dragons: Good to hear from you in your journal. Solutions to 'drying out'. Thanks for your thorough journaling. Dr. Hemmingway is deducing from your observations on dry plants over the weekend an important aspect of your plants environment and growing system; namely , why are your plants drying out? You need to help me help you figure this problem out. Can you please provide me with as accurate answers as possible to the questions below. 1)Was there water in the reservior when you observed the dry plants on Monday after the weekend? 2)Had the reservoir run out of water over the weekend? 3)If there was water in the reservoir over the weekend,were all the pot wicks in the water? 4)Were the wicks of some or all of the drying pots still in the water? 5)Does it look as though some of the wicks are not functioning to bring water from the reservoir to the plants in the pots? 6)Do the reservoirs of drying pots contain quite a lot of green/somewhat slimy growth in them? Please share these questions with Mrs. McLean and the other teams in your class. Together we can determine whether the problen of drying out of plants is a general problem or not, and just how to proceed to deal with it. Thanks a lot for working with me on this potential problem! Coach Paul


	February 13, 2008 \| 2:03 AM \| Dr. Claire Hemingway Great So pleased you are able to log in now. While visiting your research web page to reply, I stopped to read your journals and look at your data sheets. Interesting reading! In your latest journal, you note that the plants are drying out. Are other teams seeing this too? Nice to see on your data sheets that each team member's plant measurements are labeled, as well as the class and mutant plants. Good job. Which particular plants from this list did you cross for the tall and the short parents? Sorry to interrupt the good conversation you are having with Coach Larry and Coach Paul, but I found your work interesting and wanted to know more. Regards, Claire Hemingway


	February 13, 2008 \| 12:50 AM \| Lyndsey (Team Member) Thank you Hey the login you gave my teacher worked! Thank You for your help getting me set up... i appreciate it.


	February 12, 2008 \| 2:35 AM \| PlantingScience.org Live Help Hello, my name is Rob and I help run this site. I've turned on our Live Help feature to help figure out what the login problem is. You'll find it at the bottom of the main Student page on this site. Just click on the button and I'll try to help you out. I've also sent your teacher your username and password, so ask your teacher about that first.


	February 12, 2008 \| 12:31 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Login Problems I have attmeted to register 5 or 6 times, when i try and login it says incorret login and user pasword. i dont know why the program will not let me register, thank you for trying to figure out what the problem is. Lyndsey


	February 12, 2008 \| 12:29 AM \| Hayley (Team Member) Login Problems


	February 12, 2008 \| 12:20 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) arabidopsis Thank you for the adivce. We find it extremely helpful and will talk to our teacher about using that technique. Yes, we have the plants covered with cling wrap and are carrying out our usual process with them, but there is still no growth.


	February 12, 2008 \| 12:05 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons;Your plants look good, keep the pollinating going. Sleeping Dragons:Your flowering plants look great. You should be able to get lots of seed from them if you pollinate thouroughly and carefully. Good pollinating! Coach Paul


	February 11, 2008 \| 4:06 AM \| Dr. Lawrence R. Griffing (Scientist/Mentor) Try germinating some Arabidopsis on a wet paper towel in a baggie I'm interested in knowing why the Arabidopsis is not growing. Could you wet a paper towel, scatter about 20 seeds on it in a line, and put it in a baggie? Put the baggie in the fridge for a few days, then take it out and see if you get germination. The Arabidopsis are VERY small when they come up. You might just be missing them. Do you have them covered with cling-wrap? Cheers, Coach Larry


	February 11, 2008 \| 3:07 AM \| Dr. Claire Hemingway login problem Hi Lyndsey, So sorry about the login problem! We are trying to figure out what is going wrong. The system does not show any record of you attempting to login. So can you tell us what happens when you try to log in. Is there an error message--what does it say? Regards, Claire Hemingway


	February 11, 2008 \| 1:58 AM \| Kristen (Team Member) Replanting We also replanted our arabidopsis plants today. Hoping that we will have much more success with this planting than we did with the previous. this is lyndsey, i will be logging in through my groups loggin names, because the program keeps rejecting my loggin. i will sign each time i loggin through somebody elses name. sorry for the confusing surcomstanses. Lyndsey


	February 11, 2008 \| 1:54 AM \| Kristen (Team Member) Pollination Today we pollinated our plants. We pollinanted a purple stemmed plant with a green stemmed plant, and also the tallest plant with the shortest plant. We hope that the results will be what we expected in our question. We will repollinate tomorrow.


	February 8, 2008 \| 3:36 AM \| Lyssa (Team Member) Some problems. Glad you're back, Dr. Larry - we missed you! Our problem with our prediction and experiment is that we have no arapidopsis to carry out the experiment on. The arapidopsis didn't grow.... I was the one who put the reserach questions on line and I was referring to only the brassica....so, I'm sorry if any confusion has emered because of this. We tried to get our arapidopsis to grow, but both our barley and arapdiopsis growths have been unsuccessful. So, our height/stem color question refers to only the brassica, and since those are the plants that we have to work with, we are goign to focus on those. Is that ok? I'm kind of confused myself at the moment....Sorry if the confusion fell on my behalf or whatnot.


	February 8, 2008 \| 3:08 AM \| Dr. Lawrence R. Griffing (Scientist/Mentor) Good choice of phenotypes Hi, Been out with the flu lately, but am back. It seems that quite a bit has changed. Height and color are good phenotypes. Normally, I would thinkthat research predictions would follow from the questions, but you appear to have a separate set of research predictions, introducing the arabidopsis. Do you think that selecting the taller or more leafy plants will produce a population with more tall or leafy plants? What is your prediction here? All the best, Coach Larry


	February 8, 2008 \| 12:10 AM \| Dr. Paul Williams (Scientist/Mentor) Sleeping Dragons: Comment on your great observations, and moving you to a sharper focus on your research question. Sleeping Dragons: You really have three research questions. One on height that will require quantitative data that you have been taking, and one on the descriptive (qualitaive data) plant stem color. You can do both, and that would be fine. In you 'prediction' section you propose yet another question; comparing Brassica with Arabidopsis. This is fine too, and as long as you take data on the phenotypes that you are using for comparison, you can do that later when the Arabidopsis is farther along in its growth and development. If you are selecting on the basis of plant height, and comparing leaf number, I would suggest that you count the seed leaves(cotyledons) and all of the leaves on the main stem including even the smallest whispy green leaf like structures(bracts) associated with the first flower branch(pedicels). From your data, you should calculate the, mean(x), range(r),and standard deviation(s) of both your general population and your selected subpopulations. These numbers will be the ones that you use in your comparisons with the new generation that you produce as a result of your selection and pollination. Regarding the plants that lost their wick, these will have undergone a transplant shock that will have set back their growth. I would not use them in you experiment. You guys are doing great! Coach Paul


	February 7, 2008 \| 1:03 PM \| Kristen (Team Member) Transplanting One of my teamates decided to pull the wick out of the bottom of one of my plants. I have transplanted it. Some of the roots were severed, the plant was really dry, and they were falling over due to not enough water (or at least that's what I think). Is there anything you would suggest that I do to try and salvage the plants? Will the way that it has been treated gravely effect the daughter plants' growth?


	February 7, 2008 \| 1:08 AM \| Kristen (Team Member) Expiremental design update We updated our expiremental design and we made bee sticks for the pollination. After we get your feedback we are ready to carry on with our expirment.