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.

After the end of the session, we will be updating the platform and archiving groups and projects, after which time new updates/posts will not be able to be added to projects or groups. Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Project Gallery anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Gallery by keyword, team name, topic, or school name.

Good bye for now.
Warm regards,
The PlantingScience team

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.

@Gracie: If I follow you correctly, this means that the plant grew higher when the light was not coming directly from above?

@Emily: That's an interesting observation. BTW, plants don't perceive green light (that's the reason why plants are green, the chlorophyll (which is the green pigment giving the leaves its colour) is absorbing light radiations with an exception for wavelengths corresponding to green colour in the visible spectrum).
I also think it might come from the quantity of light perceived by the plants rather than water (especially if you watered all the plants equally).

As a general question: When you measure the plants, do you place them upright to measure the stem length? Didn't you observe that the plants are leaning towards light. I recommend you to google "phototropism" to have a look at what I mean.

great job all of you

hello, you are doing a great job so far. I am a little curious, did you notice anything special regarding how the plants are growing depending of the light angle, besides the height?

Hi Thomas, we have noticed that the plants have grown towards the light. The final measurements for the plants were plant 1: 10.5 cm, plant 2: 12 cm, and plant 3: 11.5cm. 

Hi! We watered our plants after not watering them over the weekend. For each plant, we watered them approximately half a plastic cup of water. Plants 2 and 3 were bottom watered and Plant 1 was watered normally, like the last time. We then measured the height again: Plant 1 is 8cm, Plant 2 is 9cm, and Plant 3 is 10cm. The variation in the height could be a result of the soil, because I've noticed that the soil could be dense or lightly packed, which could take away from the true height of the plant. There could also be human error because the plant might not be held straight enough for measuring. The measuring might not be done accurately. All of these sources of error could be a factor in the results of the lab. 

Hi! Today we watered our plants after a few days with no water. I bottom-watered plants 2 & 3 with approximately half a plastic cup for each plant. I also watered plant 1 half a plastic cup of water, too. We then measured the new height of the plants: plant 1 is 9 cm tall, plant 2 is 11 cm, and plant 3 is 9 cm. These measurements were taken from the soil to the the tallest plant in the cup. It doesn't seem like the plants were affected to much from the lack of water, but they have been responding well to the light treatments. We will be sure to keep you updated on any progress. 

Update:

We watered the plants with 30 c.c. yesterday and 10 c.c. today. We also put it under different light angles for each plant. One 90 degree angle, second 0 degree angle, and third 45 degree angle. We will start observing progressing changes.

Hi! We also decided to remove the plants from the plastic cups they were in so thee light could truly be horizontal. Because of this, we decided to "bottom water" our plants by tilting a tray and placing the plants at the bottom so water would gather. In addition to the 10 mL of water we added before setting up our actual light-angling experiment, we added approximately half a plastic cup of water to each of the trays. We will be sure to note any progress and/or changes in our experiment.

Hi! Yesterday I watered the plants with 30mL of water. We set up our experiment today because all of the plants have started to grow. We watered all of the plants with 10mL today. Here is the data we collected for today.

Plant 1- light angle 90^o (vertical)

Plant 2- light 0^o (horizontal)

Plant 3- light 45^o

Height recorded based off of the tallest plant.

 

	Plant 1	Plant 2	Plant 3
Height initial (cm)	6cm	11cm	7cm

Hi! I will be sure to double check with my peers tomorrow, but I think it took about 9 days between when we planted the seeds and when we saw them germinate. I think this number would have been a little shorter if we had put them in a water-retaining container sooner, but we will probably begin our lighting experiment this week at some point. On Friday, we added approximately 30 mL of water to keep it moist throughout the weekend since no one would have been around. We will be sure to keep you updated on any progress tomorrow when we meet for class. Thanks!!

Great!! congratulations!!!!!!

Just by curiosity, how long did it take in total for the seeds to germinate?

Hi! After placing the peat pots in the plastic cups and giving them a more generous amount of water (50mL), two seeds started to break through the soil in cups 1 and 3. Today we only added 20 mL of water to the cups so we don't overwater. We don't have class tomorrow but we will have someone in our group swing by tomorrow to check any progress and water the plants again.

Hi!

Yesterday we added more water than we have been in the past. This new set up was hoped to assist in growth through "bottom watering" as had been suggested. Today we checked the progress and we can tell there has been growth so far. We will keep you updated!

Katie

Update:

It started growing! Container 1 and 3 plants broke the soil. We watered each plant again with 30 cc of water. Hopefully plant 2 is going to grow. I think 30 cc of water is the best amount to water each day since it grew from last time. We will keep you updated.

Correction: we watered them with only 20mL of water, not 30mL.

The bottom watering worked! Plants 1 and 3 have started to grow. We watered each plant with 30mL of water today because the top of the soil was still a little wet. We will check back in tomorrow to see if plant 2 starts to grow. Once they have all started to grow we will set them under different angles of light. 

We added more water this time than in the past because we predict that most of the water will go through the peat pot again. This water will than gather in the plastic cup and continue to water the plant from the bottom like Viviana suggested. Thank you for the help!

Update:

Yet I still don't see any growth from the plants. The plants still haven't broke the soil yet. We added 50 ml of water again into each cups. Hopefully we are not under watering or overwatering the plants. We are trying to figure out the amount of water that would make it grow. We will continue to keep you updated, thanks.

Hi, today we are placing the peat pots into plastic cups to hopefully retain more water than before. In addition, we are adding 50 mL of water to each of the pots/cups to play around with which water amount our seeds like the best. There is still no noticeable difference in the growth, but hopefully placing the pots into the cup will help with plant growth.

it is indeed quite important to keep the soil moist but don't overwater either. Seeds need oxygen to germinate as well as seedlings need it to grow. Just follow the instructions given by Viviana and that should help a lot

Update:

There was not a significant of growth for the plants. We think that adding more water might help it grow. We added 30 c.c. of water each container, and hopefully it will grow. We also placed the pots into plastic cups, so we can make sure the water stays there. We will keep it updated, thanks!

Thank you Thomas and Viviana!

I do suspect that a lack of water is the issue, so we are going to place the current pots inside of plastic cups so that the water doesn't escape. The top was dry again today with still no growth. We watered it with 30 mL again. I predict that this change will result in growth because other groups in our class that used plastic containers have plant growth occurring. 

I will keep you updated, Grace.

Hi! Today we added approximately 30 mL of water to the plants. There is still no noticeable growth, at least any growth that has broke through the soil. I think the problem is that none of the water is being contained in the pot, so minimal water is actually saturating the soil long enough for the seed to use it and grow. To remedy this, I think a plastic cup large enough to fit around the peat pot that we are currently using could be used; we would simply have to place the peat pot inside a plastic cup. Another option would be to just transfer the seeds into a plastic cup all together. In general, I think the only thing wrong with our experiment so far is that a water isn't saturating the soil and the seeds enough and/or for a long enough time. We will keep you posted! 

indeed, it can take longer for the plants to germinate. You just have to be patient. As I said to another group, make sure that the surface of the soil is kept moist and water the pots by the bottom. That way, when the top is moist, it means that all the soil is also humide.

good luck and have a nice weekend

Update:

The plants are still under the lights. We added 30 ml of water to each plant. I did not really see any growth of the plant. It is still under the soil, but we can be patient and keep waiting. I will keep it updated.

Hi Thomas!

Yesterday we did nothing to the plants, except left them under the light as normal. We added 30 mL of water to each plant as well. No noticeable growth beyond the soil has occurred yet, but that is completely fine because it has only been 4 days since we even planted the seeds.

Hi Thomas,

Today we added 30mL of water. The soil was dry because we did not have class yesterday and the plants went 48 hours without being watered. There is still no plant growth, so I will be more cautious of the plants having enough water.

Concerning the amount of water to put, it strongly depends on the humidity in the room. Just make sure that the surface of the soil is moist (or at least not completely dry).

Maybe you can wait a couple of days between the seed break and the beginning of the experiment as the first few days, plant growth is not exclusively related to light perception but also depends on the storage in the seeds. In your case, there is really little storage in the seeds so that a couple of hours should be enough but better play safe and wait a 1 or 2 days.

Hello! So far, our lab is going well. We have performed all of the steps of the procedure to set it up, and now we are just waiting to begin seeing results. We have kept the amount of water (25 cc) the same, the light have remained constant, and we are hoping that our lab continues on the right path. Beekeeping everything that could possibly derail our experiment under control in terms of consistency throughout our samples, we lessen the amount of room for error when looking to find how the angel of light affects the rate of photosynthesis (our essential question). We will not be on again until friday because we do not have class, but we are looking forward to sharing our progress!

Hi! Today is Day 3 of our experiment. We added approximately 25 mL of water to eat peat pot both yesterday and today. Do you think that is enough water for every 24 hours? It seems like the water is being completely absorbed by the saturation seen with on the pot, but I just want to be sure that there will be enough water for a 24 hour period. So far, there isn't any plant growth, but I will be sure to keep you posted on the progress of the experiment. Once the seeds break through the soil, we will begin our experimentation with the effect of the angle of lighting. 

We don't have class tomorrow (Thursday) so we won't be able to check the progress until Friday, and we will be sure to update the feed concerning any progress seen in our experiment. I don't suspect that any growth will appear until after the weekend, but that depends on if and how much water it receives over the weekend. I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Hello. That is a nice experimental design. @Gracie, it is a really good idea to first check that there is no variation between the "samples" before the beginning of the experiment.

Just keep going, you are on the right track. Looking forward to seeing what results you will obtain.

Good luck

Update: We added additional 25 cc of water to each plant. They have been under the light the whole time since the experiment has started; someone accidentally took it off the light by a couple seconds, hopefully that wouldn't affect the whole experiment. 

Hi Thomas,

Today we added 25 mL to each plant. They are under constant light. Do you have any suggestions or concerns with the idea of starting the plant growth before testing the effects of light angle on its growth? The reason we decided to do it was to make sure that each container contains seeds that are not defective, or in other words they won't have an issue growing for reasons outside of the light angle being tested.

We began conducting our radish seed lab today. Below is the procedure we plan to follow for this experiment. So far, we have carried out the preparation steps 1-3, and the potted seeds are ready to be used. Looking forward to telling you more as the lab moves forward!

As of right now, the experiment we're going to run is as follows:

Group 2: Gracie, Emily, Katie, Ron

 

AP Biology

Mrs. Cost

21 October 2019

 

Radish Seeds

 

Purpose: 

The purpose of this experiment is to test whether or not different angles of light affect the growth of radish seeds.

 

Hypothesis:

I hypothesize that a vertical flow of light (directly above the seed/plant) will result in the most growth of the radish seed due to the fact that at 90o the plant will receive maximum light exposure and smaller angles will receive a lower light exposure. Because light is a reactant of photosynthesis, the most amount of light a plant can receive will result in more photosynthesis reaction, which will cause more plant growth.

 

Materials:

• Radish Seeds

• Soil  (Note: Brand of the soil is “Jiffy”)

• Containers for planting

• Artificial lighting (3)

• Water

• Books (or something else to elevate the light to the desired angle)

• Tape 

• Two boxes 

 

Procedure:

1. Plant radish seed into a container full of potting soil. Make sure the seed is covered with soil

2. Water the seed until the soil is moist.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, two additional times for a total of three plants.

4. Place all three plants under the same artificial light at 90o until all of the seeds have started to grow through the soil.

5. Record the initial height of the plants.

6. Place one plant under a light elevated at 90o (directly above the plant by hanging the light)

7. Using books elevate the remaining two lights to 60o and 30o, respectively.  

8. Separate the three plants by placing a box in between them so that the different lights don’t affect the experiment.

Update: We put approximately 20 ml of water in each of the container.

Update: We are currently doing the radish seeds light angle experiment. We planted 5 seeds in each container, and the container is 2.5 inches in diameter. We used "Jiffy Natural and Organic" soil; the brand of the soil is "Jiffy".

If you really want to look at the plants before stopping the experiment, you should shut every source of light and use a green lamp (plants don't perceive green light) but that might be a little tricky to establish as you should really avoid any source of white light (even dimmed...)