Inquiry: Seed to sprout

1. Inquiry: Seed to sprout By Shauna Turner, Hannah Brown, Sophia Draper, Annica Howe, and Kayla Blight

2. Does lettuce sprout faster in water or soil? • What water content does lettuce seeds sprout faster in? • Does the temperature affect the speed of sprouting? • Does lettuce sprout faster in soil when assisted?

3. Does lettuce sprout faster in water or soil? Hypotheses: Shauna, Sophia, and Hannah: If we sprout lettuce in water and in soil, then the plants in water will sprout faster Annica and Kayla: If we sprout lettuce in water and in soil, then the plants in soil will sprout faster

4. conclusion • Hannah, Sophia and Shauna: our conclusion for the main question is that we did find that the seeds in water sprouted faster in paper towels in plastic bags • They look to be growing faster than the ones in the soil • We also believe that we got more seeds to sprout in the water then the soil • We are not sure if it is because of the different seeds or because we kept them wet throughout the whole process.

5. What water content does lettuce sprout the fastest in? (Hannah and Shauna) • Hypothesis: if we sprout lettuce seeds in tap water, fish (aquarium) water, and pond water , the seeds in pond water will sprout the fastest, because we believe that it has the most nutrients.

6. Conclusion for first attempt • The fish water germinated the fastest followed by tap, and pond followed later. • We believe that  in the middle of the process they dried out. Then when we watered them again they began to grow mold • We think this severely decreased the speed of germination of the seeds. • We know now that if you are going to sprout seeds in a paper towel on a plate then you need to tend all the time so that they do not dry out.

7. Does the temperature affect the speed of lettuce growing? (Sophia) • Hypothesis: If I sprout lettuce seeds in a cold temperature and in a warm temperature, then the lettuce seeds in a warm temperature will sprout faster

8. Conclusion for first attempt • Lettuce in soil with heat sprouted the fastest. • The lettuce in water and paper towel both heat and no heat didn’t sprout, and neither did the lettuce in soil with no heat. • This is what I expected, because heat is one of the main factors of plant growth. • The reason that the lettuce seeds in water and paper towel didn’t sprout, is that they kept drying out. • We would water them each day, but when we would get to school in the mornings, the paper towel would be dry. • This caused some of the seeds to grow mold.

9. What water content does lettuce sprout the fastest in? Conclusion for second attempt • In conclusion we have found that the problem that we thought was  causing  the mold and which made the plants  stop  growing was correct. They did get to dry at one point which stopped the growth • When we redid our experiment, we found that when we put the paper towel in plastic bags they stayed damp and  never got close to drying out like the paper towels on the plates did • We found that the seeds in the fish water grow the fastest we think this is because of all of the the rich nutrients that are in the fish water. • In our hypothesis we thought that the pond water would have the best water content of growing seeds. • Now we believe that the pond water we got has too much run off making it pollution overwhelming the nutrients that should have been there.

10. Does the temperature affect the speed of lettuce growing? Conclusion for second attempt • Like my first attempt, the lettuce seeds with heat sprouted first. • The difference this time though, was because we kept the seeds in plastic bags, they never dried out. • Not only did the seeds split this time, but they have now began to grow small green sprouts. • The Lettuce seeds in the cooler temperature also sprouted and began to grow, but they sprouted later, and they haven’t grown as large as the seeds in heat.

11. Why did we decide to do this project? • We decided to do this project for the future Millside community garden. • Our goal was to find the most effective way to sprout seed to we can start growing are plants. • This way we hope that we will be able to apply what we learned to are garden in the future so we can have a more successful harvest