Research Page for The Bush School, Team 7

4/22/05 10:42AM - T7: First upload of our journal is complete.
4/24/05 5:23PM - Dr. Beverly Brown: Do you think the size of the endosperm will stay the same or change as the embryo develops? Is there a way you could test this?
4/25/05 4:02PM - T7(Yeorgia): Over the weekend our corn seeds began to germinate. You can see the sprouts and the roots getting pretty long. (Maybe a centimeter each.) We have come up with a possibility for our group experiment. We are going to see whether or not the corn seeds can continue to grow in a liquid substance other than water. We're going to do 6 experiments, each with a different liquid (see journal).
4/28/05 12:00PM - Dr. C. Hemingway: Hello, Team 7, I like the fact that you have chosen a variety of liquids to compare with water. Some of the liquids contain water (milk, juice, soda) and others do not (oil). What affect do you think the oil will have on germination? Are you planning to include several samples of various treatments (water, water-based liquid, oil)?
4/28/05 12:32AM - T7(Yeorgia) Response to Dr. Hemingway: April 27th. Today we reworked our experiment according to Peggy Skinner's suggestions. We started the experiment. Before we get too far along with it, we want to know what you think. This is what we did: First we measured the mass of ten, dry, average pieces of corn all together and got 3.43g. We took 5 containers and put the same amount of corn in each of them. Next we took water (control), apple juice, milk, vinegar, and Sprite and poured the same amount of each into their own separate container of the five. So we had a container of apple juice with corn, water with corn, Sprite with corn, vinegar with corn, and a fifth of milk with corn. Next we found the pH of the substance in each of the five containers. For Vinegar we got a pH of 2, for Apple Juice- 4, for water- 7, for milk- 7, and for Sprite- 5. We figured that everyday, in addition to taking observations and making sketches of the seeds and about which ones seem to be germinating faster and more conventionally, we would also test the pH of each of the five containers, just to see if any changes had occurred and we will be drying off ten random seeds from each of the five containers and measuring the mass. Well, that's it for now. Let us know what you think.
4/28/05 1:11PM - Dr. C. Hemingway: The refinements to your experiment are very good. It is now much clearer that you are looking at how pH affects germination. What predictions do you have?
4/29/05 9:28AM - Dr. M. Sundberg: This sounds like an interesting experiment that I think will get more interesting as results come in. But I do have a question about your set up. I assume you'll be soaking your seeds overnight in the appropriate solutions - - but then I'm unclear. Will you be rinsing the seeds every day with the appropriate solution or growing them continuously in solution - and if the latter, will they be completely covered or not? Also, I'm sure you'll be looking at rate of germination but do you also plan to look at other growth characteristics? I'm looking forward to seeing what you find.
5/2/05 4:01PM - T8 Response to Dr. Sudberg: We soaked the seeds the first night, but after that we are rinsing them in the liquid and then pouring it back out. We are also recording the mass of the seeds every day, and the pH before starting, and after soaking in the various liquids. We think that oil won’t grow well, since there is no water it will become dehydrated. We think the seeds in liquids with the most neutral pH will grow the best.
5/4/05 4:22PM - T7(Katie): Today we decided to soak the seeds in liquid overnight again, because they seemed very dry. We also decided to measure the average sprout of a seed from each liquid. The seeds and their sprout lengths are in order longest to shortest. We were very surprised that water was shortest.
5/6/05 11:11AM - PEER COMMENT from Bush Team 9: Team 7- This is an unusual, but cool experiment. Why do you think that the average length of the water-grown corn seedlings is less than the length of all the others? I hope that you can make some sort of conclusion that will seek to explain this problem.
5/9/05 4:04PM - Dr. Susan Singer : Greetings Bush team 7. I've been following the experiments teams 9 and 10 have been conducting and got curious about how your corn work was going. Here's what I'm wondering. Do you think it is possible that you are actually looking at more than one variable in your experiment? Your hypothesis is that pH should affect plant growth with a neutral pH being optimal. Some of your solutions, however, also contain plant nutrients. While Sprite is probably not a great source of nutrition for you, it contains a lot of sugar and plants use sugar as their major energy source. The same is true for apple juice. What effect do you think the sugar concentrations in your solutions might have had on plant growth? Do you think there are other nutrients in your solutions that might be affecting plant growth? I had one other thought about pH to share with you. I grow peas in culture medium in my lab (clear jello-like stuff with nutrients in it). My peas are happiest when the pH of the medium is between 5.5 and 5.7. The same is true for tobacco plants.