Conversations - use this space to communicate about this project
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April 5, 2010 | 4:19 AM |
PS team
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 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 |
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April 1, 2010 | 5:17 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Results Hey there folks, I just looked at your final report presentation. That was very nicely done. How wonderful that your hypothesis was so clearly supported by your results. I do have another suggestion about future directions that you may want to consider, if only as a matter of "what if?" Perhaps you would find that seed mass differs between your two treatments. Given the size of the seeds produced you could not realistically weigh them individually, but several at a time sounds doable. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there for your edification. You have been such a great groups to work with, I have had a very good time working with you. I hope that you have enjoyed your foray into the realm of botany and the scientific method. Good luck to you in all your other endeavors Sarah, Mac, and Jordan. |
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March 31, 2010 | 10:38 AM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones We have finished our experiment and it turns out our hypothesis is correct. The plants given more nutrients ended up producing more seeds. The averages for the high and low nutrient plants weren't far apart but it was clear the high nutrient plants contained more seeds. |
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March 24, 2010 | 4:05 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Welcome back Hey there folks, I'm glad that your plants have progressed in their development. That brings you one step closer to having results. I am anxious to hear what you all find. I would caution you to be careful when removing the seeds from your siliques to count them. They can seem to fly out of those fruits, so I'd try opening them over a petri dish or something similar to catch the seeds as they fall out of the fruit. Good luck and I look forward to hearing about your results. |
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March 24, 2010 | 12:56 AM |
galliantgabby
(Student, The Merry Meristems - FHS_S10_W12 · -1)
you guys are really green! |
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March 23, 2010 | 4:18 AM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones, We are almost able to open up our siliques and count our seeds. Until then, we are going to work on our lab report. I'm hoping that we will be able to count our seeds soon, because we really need to collect our data before this project is due. Anyway, we are making good progress. |
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March 22, 2010 | 8:29 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, Today we came into class to find that our immature pods or siliques of our plants had formed from the pistil. We are still unable to count the seeds because they are not mature enough yet but we should be able to in a couple of days. Thank you. Sincerely, Sarah |
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March 10, 2010 | 10:03 PM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
counting seeds Hey there everybody, I'm so glad to hear that everything is going well. As for counting seeds, it turns out to be quite simple. In most cases the fruit will open up to allow the seeds to fall out, in botany we say that the fruit dehisces. So counting seeds should be relatively simple. Once the fruits are mature, but before they open up, go ahead and open them up and count the seeds inside. The fruits may be a little small to manipulate without forceps of some sort, but I'm sure you can figure something out. Please let me know if that answers your question. Good luck and great work everybody! |
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March 10, 2010 | 2:14 AM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones Today we got our first flower. Are plants are doing quite well, and hopefully we will have plenty of seeds on the way. We have continued to keep our other data also, such as color, height, etc. Now we are currently working on our procedure, which we would like for you to review once we are finished. Thanks Again, Jordan |
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March 9, 2010 | 11:25 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, Yes, this makes perfect sense. We have been measuring our plants frequently and are happy to see that they are growing quickly. They have not begun to flower yet so we will have to wait a while before counting seeds. Along with measuring our plants we have been keeping data tables for color, height, and eventually number of seeds produced. I have a question on how exactly we will count the seeds. Will we just hold the pod that they are in up to the light and count from there? Thank you so much for all of your help. Sincerely, Sarah |
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March 9, 2010 | 9:31 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Waiting for results Hey folks, I am all too familiar with waiting for results. Unfortunately that is all part of science. In the meantime, you can begin thinking about how you want to collect and record your data. Is it the case then that you will have plants fed with different amounts of fertilizer? If that is so, you could start working on making a spreadsheet that has a space to list the number of seeds produced by each plant and a space to record the amount of fertilizer used on each plant. Does that make sense? |
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March 8, 2010 | 7:32 AM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones We have been caring for are plants and making various measurements and observations. We are going to have to wait several weeks until we can count how many seeds our plant produced. When it is time to count our seeds, what should we look for in our plants and how exactly should we count the seeds? Thank you for your help. |
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March 3, 2010 | 6:34 AM |
117
(Student, M*C*3 cody chris cyndi mable - MPH_S13_W02 · 3)
This is DeAndre' I am with the kong fu pandas your experiment sounds really cool. |
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March 2, 2010 | 9:59 PM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Progress Yay! I'm so excited for you all. I am also anxious to hear what you find out. Did you decide to use a control group that has just water added? I look forward to hearing back from you all soon. Good luck with everything. |
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March 1, 2010 | 9:11 AM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones Thank you for all of your help so far. Our plants are doing great and we are about to begin focusing on our specific variables. |
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February 28, 2010 | 8:19 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, Thank you so much for your suggestion. As Mac said, I believe we can only use one type of fertilizer but the first suggestion was great. The plants are doing very well and I am excited to begin focusing on our one variable more closely. Sincerely, Sarah |
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February 28, 2010 | 5:07 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Experimental design That sounds great. If you can I would include a control set that you don't add any fertilizer to as well. Good luck. |
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February 28, 2010 | 2:12 AM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones, I think we can only use one type of fertilizer, so we are going to do an experiment based on your first suggestion. We have already planted our plants, putting different amounts of fertilizer in each one, and they are growing very well. Later we will observe how many seeds each plant produces. |
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February 28, 2010 | 12:21 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Experimental design Hey there folks, sorry for the delayed reply. You have decided on some really interesting questions. First of all, tracking the inheritance of color across generations is very interesting, and at least I think you should take notes on that, especially if you are cross pollinating the plants and can track the stem color of the mother and father plants and how they are distributed among the offspring. As for how nutrient availability affects seed production, there are several approaches that I think you might take. One is to do an experiment where you vary the amount of nutrients for several plants and count the seeds. In this case you could use an amount of water equal to the volume of fertilizer that you add as your control, and then just vary the concentration of the fertilizer solutions that you use. Another thing that might be interesting to examine is the different elements present in fertilizer. You can often find fertilizers that differ in their ratios of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. You could try several different kinds of fertilizers to see which has the greatest effect on seed production or plant growth for that matter. Please let me know what you think about all that and we can begin planning a specific experiment. Great job everyone, I am really looking forward to seeing what you find out. |
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February 26, 2010 | 2:26 AM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones In class we discussed the variables we think want to measure. I think the thing that has impacted plant growth the most is the presence of light. Considering that photosynthesis requires light, i think it would be a big factor for our plants. |
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February 25, 2010 | 10:47 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, Today in class we looked at the variance in our germinating plants. The variable that I was interested in the most was the variance in the color in the different generations of the plants. It was a good way to see the recessive and dominant color while seeing how the color was passed on through the generations. We say that the father plant had purple hypocotyls while the mother had yellow hypocotyl. The purple color was passed on to the children. In the F2 generation, the hypocotyl color was a greenish color. This is what we have been talking about but it was really cool to see it first hand. Sincerely, Sarah |
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February 25, 2010 | 10:40 AM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones, Today we began to decide what the dependent variable of our experiment would be. I think the most interesting experiment would be to see how the amount of nutrition affects the amount of seeds produced by the plant. I think this is interesting because we may discover that higher amounts of fertilizer not only lead to a bigger plant, but to different reproductive abilities as well. |
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February 24, 2010 | 11:58 PM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
We are trying to think of ways to measure variance in plants and their characteristics. Do you know of any unique variables to keep track of? |
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February 24, 2010 | 11:39 PM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Dr. Jones, What other variables affect the growth of a plant besides amount of sunlight, amount of water, temperature, and nutrition in the soil? |
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February 24, 2010 | 11:10 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, In class we are talking about variance in a population of plants and what characteristics we can measure about plants. I was wondering what variable affects growth in plants the most? Does it depend on the plant? Thank you! Sincerely, Sarah |
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February 18, 2010 | 7:32 AM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Greetings Hey there Mac, Sarah, and Jordan. I really like your answers to my questions. It's funny to me Mac that you like the way plants reproduce in a variety of ways because that is the focus of my research. The possibilities are truly staggering. Sarah, I do appreciate the sense that horses have about events and people, first hand actually. I once tried to ride a horse that knew I wasn't in charge. It ended with me jumping off the galloping horse, not my brightest moment. As for Jordan's dinosaurs, that is a wonderful field of study and in fact I have a good friend who uses alligators as a model to examine the way that dinosaurs bite. Pretty cool stuff. As for what scientists do every day, the answers are as varied as their research interests. I spend half of my time in the field collecting flowers an the other half of the time in the lab or at my desk doing experiments or writing about them. It can be pretty tough Jordan as you mentioned, but I think it is rewarding. I'm so glad to know more about you all, and I'm really excited about working with you on your project. Do you have any ideas yet about what you'd like to explore? I look forward to hearing back from you all, and thanks again for sharing. |
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February 18, 2010 | 2:06 AM |
jordan94
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, My favorite creature or thing is probably a tie between humans and dinosaurs. (Even though dinosaurs aren’t really “living things” anymore.) The most interesting thing to me about plants is the way they are able to grow all alone, and they live such a peaceful, quiet existence. I’m not really sure what a scientist does on a daily basis, but I imagine it is not easy. I’m sure that they do some fun stuff too though. I look forward to working with you on this project. Jordan |
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February 18, 2010 | 2:05 AM |
sahstudent
(Team Member)
Dear Dr. Jones, My name is Sarah and I am 15 years old. My favorite living thing is probably a horse because I have loved to ride ever since I was 4. Everything about them is interesting but the thing that interests me the most is that they always seem to know when something bad is going to happen and when you are not comfortable. If the rider does not seem comfortable and confident, they will not let you ride them. I think that the most interesting thing about plants is that Venus Fly Traps can digest their food. That’s so cool and weird! I really do not know anything about how a scientist spends their day but if I had to guess I would think that they spend their day testing different theories about all different ideas that they may have. It seems fun to be able to ask a question and have the resources and ability to figure out the answer. I am looking forward to working with you and I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to help me with this project. I think it is going to be really interesting. Sincerely, Sarah |
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February 18, 2010 | 2:02 AM |
mac787
(Team Member)
Hello Dr. Jones, I have to say that my favorite living things are humans because I find them quite interesting sometimes. I think the coolest thing about plants is their ability to reproduce in a variety of ways, but, honestly, plants do not excite me too much. I imagine scientists to spend their days doing research in some sort of lab. I look forward to working with you on this project and am anxious to begin. |
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February 17, 2010 | 9:42 PM |
Dr. Eric Jones
(Scientist/Mentor)
Greetings Hey there everybody, I hope that you are all doing well. My name is Eric Jones, and I am a graduate student at Florida State University and I study floral evolution and flower development. I also study the philosophy of science. I have had a blast working with students on their projects in the past and so I am excited to be working with you all now. I am anxious to get to know you so I thought I might start of with a couple of questions if you don't mind. What is your favorite living thing? What do you think is the coolest thing about plants? How do you think a scientist spends their day at work? I look forward to hearing back from you and to helping you with your projects. Until then, good luck in all your other endeavors. |
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February 17, 2010 | 4:13 AM |
PS team
Welcome to PlantingScience! Hello, I'm happy to introduce you to your scientist mentor for the genetics project. Please meet Mr. Eric Jones of Florida State University. Your mentor will help your team think through your team findings and class data. We all look forward to seeing what you discover about traits in the population of Brassica you study throughout their life cycle. Sharing ideas and observations is a huge part of science. We hope you enjoy this opportunity to talk online with your mentor during this extended inquiry. All best wishes on this scientific journey. Regards, The PlantingScience Team |
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