For pollination we used our fingers and dabbed it on a flower, then we moved it to another flower, and used our fingers and dabbed on it again. We did this until we touched every flower. After our plants were pollinated, they started to die and pods started growing on them.

Since the last blog post, things changed a lot. The controlled plants are very green, the soil is wet, one of the controlled plants is 18 and a half centimeters tall, it has lots of pods, it’s biggest leaf is 5 centimeters, and it has some new buds. Our manipulated plants are dying, they are not as green as the controlled plants, the manipulated plants are wilting, the soil is dry, one of the manipulated plants are 9 and a half centimeters tall, and it only has 2 pods.

I predict that the manipulated plants will die and I predict that the controlled plants will grow better than it is now.

These are our controlled plants on May 30,2017.

These are our manipulated plants on May 30,2017.

For the past 2 weeks my class planted seeds. We planted two different seeds. One was a controlled and the other was a manipulated. The controlled had all the variables it needed, water, soil, light, air, and fertilizer. The manipulated had one changed variable. My group changed the soil into sand.

Today our largest controlled plant measures 7 centimeters tall. It was growing almost straight up. The soil is wet. The controlled plant has lots of healthy leaves. The biggest leaf measures 2.5 centimeters long. Both the leaves and the buds are green. The plant with the most flower buds has 12 buds.

Our largest manipulated plant measures 7 and a half centimeters. It has 23 buds. The other three manipulated plants didn’t grow as well. Two of them were pretty small. The last one didn’t grow at all. All of the four manipulated plants together has 12 leaves. The manipulated plant had fewer leaves than the controlled.  The manipulated plant was heavier than the controlled plant. Maybe the reason is that sand is heavier than soil. Or maybe we just packed the sand tighter than soil.

My conclusion is that the largest controlled and the largest manipulated plants grew similarly well. I think overall the controlled group are growing much better than the manipulated. My conclusion about soil versus sand is that plants grow better in soil than in sand, because sand does not have as much nutrients and minerals to support the plant growth.

These are our manipulated plants on Monday, May 15th, 2017.

These are our controlled plants on Monday, May 15th, 2017.

During last week we planted seeds for our new science unit. I have no idea what they are. We had a controlled plant and a manipulated plant. For our manipulated plant we used sand from the playground instead of soil. We could have changed the light ,the water, and the fertilizer. I thought it would be the same because it still might have the same minerals. It also had some dirt in it. The controlled plant had had all the variables it needed. Our question was if sand would make it grow taller.

After one week this is what we observed. The manipulated and controlled were both one inch tall. The soil and sand were moist, and they both smelled like nothing. The manipulated one was heavier than the controlled. Maybe the sand was heavier than the soil. 

These were our controlled plants on Monday, May 8, 2017.

These were our manipulated plants on Monday, May 8, 2017.