Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi Kelsey,

It might be help helpful to review your data analysis. If you would like to post your data, or even your entire presentation, I would be happy to make additional suggestions.

Donna Hardy

Ok here is my entire work:


Hypothesis:

If Dorothy Ratallack's experiment was proven true and some plants grew well, while others didn’t , then the group I'm nice to will grow well, the group I don't talk to will grow normally, and the group I'm mean to will not grow as well because plants respond to sound waves and wind.

Procedure:
1. Make three groups. Each group containing the same three plants.
2. Cut the plants to the same heights and lengths. Plant seedlings.
3. Label the groups. A, B, and C. Talk nicely to A, be angry or mean towards B, and don’t talk to C.
4. Talk to plants daily. Record observations every three days.
5. Give ½ cup of water to each plant every three days. Except for the seedlings which get a half cup until they sprout, when they sprout they then get five tablespoons every other day and are moved to plastic cups.



Test:

My independent variable is the way I talk to the plants.
My dependent variable is the height or growth of the plants.
My constant variable is the amount of water and light the plants get, the types of plants I use, and the room temperatures.



My research and data are much to long to here but heres the analysis and conclusion.



Analysis:
On the first day, January 1st, 2011, I bought the plants at The Home Depot. I got home and cut them to equal lengths; the Foliage to five inches, the Polka-Dot plants to one inch, and I planted the Eskimo Marigolds. The Marigolds were in a container of eight until they sprouted around the eighth of January. The Marigolds first received a half cup of water to their entire container until they sprouted. When they sprouted I moved three into separate plastic cups. The Marigolds' heights stayed about the same until the dates around the nineteenth. The A Marigolds were one and two tenth inches, while the B Marigolds were still one inch and seemed to slow down, and the C group Marigolds were one and one tenth inches. The Polka-Dot plants seemed to take longer than the nineteenth to change or show obvious differences. The group B plants seemed to slow down in growth during the days of the twenty eighth of January. Group C Polka- Dot plant seemed to grow a bit slower than the group A Polka- Dot and didn’t begin showing a difference until the fourth of February. The Foliage, like the Marigolds, seemed to begin to change around the nineteenth of January. While the groups A and C foliage grew to five and six tenths of an inch, Group B remained at five and a half inches. Groups A and C did not begin showing obvious differences until the twenty second of January when A Foliage grew to be five and nine inches tall; whereas the C foliage remained to be Five and eight inches tall and lacking as much growth as the A group.

Conclusion:
The question, “Does talking to plants affect their growth?” has somewhat been answered. Although, the plants seem to have grown differently the results could have been entirely coincidental. My hypothesis, which stated that, “If Dorothy Retallack's experiment was proven true and some plants grew well, while others didn’t , then the group I'm nice to will grow well, the group I don't talk to will grow normally, and the group I'm mean to will not grow as well because plants respond to sound waves and wind,” has basically been proven true by my data. My research claimed that Dorothy Retallack's experiment went on for a few months. My experiment only lasted about a month. My other source claimed that plants in a windy environment had different outcomes than plants not subjected to wind. The wind would produce noise that the plants could “hear” or sense. If I had more constantly visited the plants instead of five minutes a day or if I had a recording played in a room all around the day the outcome might have been more obvious. But, I had a limited amount of rooms that weren't visited frequently andgot the same amount of sunlight. If the rooms had been more controlled the outcome might have been more obvious. I believe that talking to plants does help them grow.

Hi Kelsey,

Thanks. This is helpful. I’ll start sending suggestions tomorrow.

What were your plant measurements? You said they were too long, but do you have a summary of results compiled in a data table? Did you present a graph of the results?

Donna Hardy

Dear Donna,

I do have data charts, line graphs, and I am adding a bar graph.

Any suggestions will be helpful!

Kelsey

I wish any other people out there who need science help, the luck of the Irish!!

Hi Kelsey,

Your write up is very good. Here are a few minor suggestions.

Procedure 3.
Can you explain how you were nice or angry so that someone reading it would be able to do the same thing? For example, did you use a loud or soft voice; how long did you talk to the plants?

Procedure 5. I like your detail here. It would be best to use metric measurement. 5 Tablespoons is 80 ml; ½ cup is 118 ml.

I can understand why your first set of judges liked your journal; the detail is amazing and it’s very well written.

Your conclusion is very thoughtful and includes a reference to your hypothesis and your results, which is the best way to present a conclusion. It you could include a summary or your data in the wording, it would be helpful. You didn’t post your data, but you might say something like, “the plants I talked nicely to grew an average of 0.5 cm higher than the control group and the plants that were exposed to angry words grew on average 0.5 cm less than the control group.” You could then say that your results confirm your hypothesis.

This is excellent. Good luck at the science fair and let me know about your results.

Donna Hardy

I didnt win

I fixed the mistakes but.....

Theres always next year

Hi Kelsey,

Thanks for letting me know and also I'm happy to hear that you are thinking about next year. At my local science fair, after the second round of competition in my county only 3 projects per category are selected to move to the next level, and this year that was 3 out of about 50 biology projects. Very tough competition, and also very hard to judge. But you did very well to win at your local fair, and I'm sure you understand better what you need to do for next year. I did enjoy working with you on this project and I encourage you to continue and do another project next year. You should take a break for now, but you could consider working on your project over the summer. Science Buddies will be open, although we may be a little slower to respond. We'd love to hear from you again!

Donna Hardy