Respected sir/madam,
I have been doing the experiment:- Suck it up:capillary action of water in plants. I have referred this site for help.
The observation table is given as follows:
Hours Spent in Colored Water Observations
0
2
4
24
48
72
I don't know what to fill in the table.I have taken the photos.But I have no idea what to fill. Please help. I have to submit this project on 10th august 2013.
Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
You are doing an experiment to show how a plant takes up and transports liquid through its stem, so what you are measuring is the distance that the dye has traveled up the stem. The difficulty of course may be in seeing the dye in the stem. That is why in the instructions it said to look at the leaf nodes, where leaves attach to the stem, because it is easier to see the color there.
At time 0, there is no dye taken up by the plants so you would simply say that you examined the stems, the leaf nodes and the flower petals and observed a green color in the former and white in the latter. Why don't you also take some close-up pictures, if you have a camera. That would provide the best record.
At the other times, you check the plants in the same way and write down what you see. You may not see any change in two hours. You should keep some of the flowers in water only so you can compare them to the flowers that have been in the dye. Again, take comparison photos if you can.
Does that help? What you are measuring is the distance the dye has traveled in the plant in the different times, so when you see the dye front, take a ruler and measure that distance from the tip of the stem to where you see the dye.
Be sure to cut the stems at a 45 degree angle with a sharp knife and remember to use at least three flowers so you can average your results. Plot the averages as a graph of distance of the dye front [y-axis] vs time [x-axis].
Hope this gives you all the information you need, but if not send us another post and i will get back to you right away.
Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
Did you use carnations for your first experiment with capillary action? Perhaps the flowers and stems were not fresh enough and the water-conducting tubes were all dried out.
You could try peperomia, but you need to be able to see and measure the height of the dye and a long, straight stem works best for that. Plus, a white flower allows you to see the dye in the petals. Do you have dandelions or daisies growing where you live? I know--dandelions are yellow, but if you used red food coloring for the dye they might turn orange! Be sure to cut the stem at a 45 degree angle with a very sharp knife [careful!] and NOT with scissors.
If you still can't see any dye in the stem or flowers, then you can use a freshly cut stalk of celery.
are u sure celery will work. the other ones didn't work and i am getting blamed by my team.
my professor told me to do it with a plantain.but it is not practical.
Project Question: I'm registering because I'm interested in volunteering with the Ask an Expert program to help students with their science fair projects.
I believe ink would be fine, as long as the chemicals in ink are not detrimental to the plant you are using; that is the only concern I can think of currently. The number of drops depends on how much you need; there isn't really a set amount, as long as you can use the water as a tracer to observe capillary action.
Reports usually have sections such as Introduction/Purpose, Methods, Results, and Discussions/Conclusions: referring to the Science Buddies resources and wide variety of scientific papers available online will definitely help! Graphs are also very important in reports.
thank you.
yes it is working.i believe i can soon post the results along with photos.
but i have a doubt: how to draw the graph.can u provide a sample.
Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
I'm glad your experiments finally worked. Your data should be the distance the ink has migrated at different time points, is that correct? You would plot distance in centimeters or inches on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Do you have MS Office on your computer? You can easily plot your data using the Excel program and generate a figure. If you have never used Excel to plot data before, just search for a tutorial on google or youtube and you will find plenty of information, or get one of your friends to show you how to do it.
Does that help you get started? If you need more information, let us know.
Project Question: I'm registering because I'm interested in volunteering with the Ask an Expert program to help students with their science fair projects.
I think SciB gave you some excellent advice; Excel is a wonderful tool and perfectly suited for generating graphs. There are also several Excel shortcuts that may make your work more efficient. One thing to consider - make sure your independent variable (i.e. what you're modifying) is on the x axis, and your dependent variable (i.e. what's responding to the changes in the independent variable) is on the y axis - this is the general convention in science.
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