Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

need help very confused

Hi bmendels,
Welcome to the Ask an Expert forums. We will be glad to help clear up your confusion, but we first need to know what you are doing and what is confusing you. The first step is to tell us the details of your experiment. I can see your scientific question in your user profile: "What effect does Greywater and Salt water have on plant growth?" What is your hypothesis? Have you designed the experiment? Have you completed some or all of the experiment? If so, what were your results?
Looking forward to hearing more.
Chris

hi chris,
i am just starting the project part of it. i was told to make a brochure with the say layout as the board. i bought all of the materials but only did one salt water, one grey water, and one control plant. is that not enough. my hypothesis is that grey water will have no effect on plant growth but salt water will kill them. i am half way through the experiment basicly done but i think im doing it wrong.
thank you,
Arielle

Hi Arielle,
That sounds like a very interesting and fun experiment. In general, it's best to have at multiple "trials" (plants) for each "treatment" (gray water versus salt water). For example, you could have three plants with salt water, plus three with gray water, plus three controls, for a total of nine plants. With multiple plants, you can have more confidence in your results, and you can continue to collect data even if something goes wrong with one of your plants (suppose one falls over). However, it is sometimes not possible to do multiple trials, and in those cases scientists make do with what they have available.
Is it possible to start over with a greater number of plants? If not, don't worry about it. If there was an important reason you only used one plant for each treatment (e.g. lack of space) you might want to mention that in your write-up. Regardless of how many plants you used, you can still learn a lot from this experiment and get some valuable experience with the scientific method.
Chris

thanks yea i bought 1 more of each today now for a total of 6.

Great! Please let us know if you have any more questions. I'll be interested to hear how the experiment turns out.
Chris

ok thanks again

the experiment turned out really well

Congrats! I'm glad to hear that the experiment went well. Thanks for letting us know.