Moss is Boss: Using Plants to Determine Direction
Have you ever gone camping, looked up at the stars, and found the Big Dipper? Two stars in the dipper part of this constellation point to Polaris, the north star, which people have used for thousands of years to help them find their way. In this plant biology science fair project, you'll investigate whether plants, like moss, can help you find your way, too.
Read more...
How Do Roots Grow When the Direction of Gravity Changes?
You might not know it, but plants are able to sense their environment and actually respond appropriately. One of the key parameters that every plant must respond to is the direction of gravity: stems go up (opposite to the pull of gravity) and roots go down (in the same direction as the force of gravity). In this project, you will construct simple devices that hold several germinating seeds, which allow you to watch how growing rootlets respond as you rotate the devices, effectively altering the direction of gravity.
Read more...
Toxic Trees: Just How Toxic is That Black Walnut Tree?
Every spring, gardeners around the world get ready to plant their summer gardens. They turn the soil over in their garden plots and add nutrients to the soil. Then they plant their seedlings and wait for nature to provide a bounty of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. But nurturing the garden doesn't stop there. In order to get lots of fruits and vegetables, the gardener must eliminate factors that can hurt the plants. Sometimes, chemicals in the soil from other plants and trees can hurt a garden. In this plant biology science fair project, you will study the toxic effects that some plants can have on other plants.
Read more...
Fruit Ripening
*
Fruit is a strategy some plants use to attract animals to disperse seeds. The animals eat the fruit and disperse the seeds through the digestive system. To attract animals, fruit needs to ripen...
Read more...
How Does the Stem Grow?
*
Plant stems grow through a process of elongation due to cell divisions within the stem. Does the entire length of the stem elongate evenly? Or do certain regions along the plant stem grow more or...
Read more...
Fungi Spores
*
Mushrooms are not plants, but are fungi. Fungi include mushrooms, molds, and lichen. They do not produce seeds to reproduce like some plants. Fungi produce spores, like more primitive plants do....
Read more...
How Do Plants Change the Buildup of Greenhouse Gases?
*
Global warming is how scientists describe the gradual warming of our global climate. Scientists think that the trend towards global warming can be attributed to the build up of greenhouse gases in...
Read more...
Can Water Plants Be Used to Determine Water Quality?
*
Some plants grow only in water-logged environments. These plants are usually native to wetlands and are important for the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems. Wetland ecosystems are very fragile...
Read more...
Propagate Plants Without Using Seeds!
Did you know that apple trees do not "breed true"? This means that if you plant seeds from an apple, say a Granny Smith, you will get apple trees, but they will make apples that are actually different than Granny Smiths. So how do farmers produce new Granny Smith trees? They use a method called
vegetative propagation. For instance, they may cut a branch off of a tree that grows Granny Smith apples and attach the branch onto a different tree trunk. This method of making new trees is called
vegetative, or
asexual propagation because the tree was not produced by the usual mixing of pollen (male) and ovule (female) to form a seed. In this plant biology science fair project, you will investigate the factors that influence the success of vegetative propagation, using the popular spider plant.
Read more...
What is the Rate of Leaf Growth Along the Stem?
*
Leaves grow in a different pattern than stems and shoots. They do not elongate along one axis, but instead spread out over time. Do all regions of the leaf grow equally? You can use markings on...
Read more...
|
Index of Plant Biology Project Ideas |
|
|
