Grade Level: 3rd - 7th; Type: Biology

Objective:
Determine whether plants will grow if they are watered with various liquids.

Download Project
Add to Collection

Grade
Third Grade,Fourth Grade,Fifth Grade,Middle School
Subject
Science

o Life Science

The purpose of this experiment is to find out whether plants really need water to grow or
whether they just need to be kept wet.

 What is the purpose of a plant’s roots?

 What types of nutrients do plants need in order to survive?
 Why do plants need water?
 What happens to a plant that does not get enough water?
 How do plants create energy?

Plants need sunlight, nutrient rich soil and water to grow. Though the quality of the
water has an effect on the plant’s health, there are many plants that are able to grow
even when they are given water that is polluted or that has some salt content. Most
plants are unable to grow out of water that is as salty as the ocean, though there are a
few varieties that can. Water is not always in abundant supply, and when it comes down
to making sure that people have enough to drink, sometimes plants are asked to go
without. Farmers have turned to using brackish water, or water that has a low salt
content, for their crops. Understanding what types of fluids plants can use can help
scientists learn more about how to meet the needs of plants as well as people in times
of draught.

 Seeds (green bean seeds work well because they grow quickly and are hardy.)
 5 Containers
 A marker
 Potting soil
 Milk
 Juice
 Cola
 Sports Drink
 Water
 A measuring cup
1. Label the containers, “Water/Control,” “Milk,” “Juice,” “Cola,” and “Sports Drink.”
2. Fill the containers with potting soil.
3. Plant three seeds in each of the pots as directed on the back of the seed package.
4. Measure out ½ cup of water and give it to the plants in the “Water/Control” container.
5. Measure out ½ cup of milk and give it to the plants in the “Milk” container.
6. Measure out ½ cup of juice and give it to the plants in the “Juice” container.
7. Measure out ½ cup of cola and give it to the plants in the “Cola” container.
8. Measure out ½ cup of sports drink and give it to the plants in the “Sports Drink”
container.
9. Place the plants in a warm, sunny place outdoors or in a window.
10. Repeat steps 4-8 every other day.
11. Record the growth of the plants on a chart such as the one below.

PLANT GROWTH CHART

HEIGHT Water 1 Water 2 Water 3 Milk 1 Milk 2 Milk 3

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
PLANT GROWTH CHART

NUMBER Water 1 Water 2 Water 3 Milk 1 Milk 2 Milk 3

OF
LEAVES
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Terms/Concepts: Germinate;Growth; Photosynthesis; Roots; Stems; Leav
http://lemonlimeadventures.com/experiments-for-kids-effecting-plant-growth/
 Rusty nail experiment
You will need:
 6 test tubes or plastic cups
 6 steel nails (avoid galvanised ones)
 Coke
 Water
 Lemon Juice
 Vinegar
 Cooking oil

You could also try salt water, detergent

or any other benign chemicals that you
can safely leave unattended. If you can
secure the area safely and you have
adult supervision you can also try
bleach or stronger acids too. Rusty nail science experiment

Copyright

Instructions
1. Set up the 6 test tubes or cups as shown in the picture above. This experiment is very
much about variable testing!

2. Take a photo and write down your observations of each nail at the start of the experiment.
This is also a good time to enter this into your own classroom blog!

Optional: weigh each nail with an accurate scale at the start and the end of the experiment.

3. Over the coming days take recording of each nail's condition.

- Which nail showed rust first?

- If you were able to weigh each nail at the end of the experiment, was there any difference
between the nails? Why?

4. This setup is just one way of running this classic rust experiment. You could also try the
follwing experiment conditions too:

- nail completely submerged in water vs. half submerged.

- nail completely submerged in water with a layer of oil over the top of it.
- nail in salt water vs. nail in pure salt

https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/Free+experiments/Kitchen+chemistry/rusty+nail+experiment.htm
l
What Makes Mold Grow?
We are going to perform a mold bread experiment to grow our own mold
and find out whether mold does indeed grow faster at higher temperatures.
 In ten days you will be able to answer this important question and make a contribution to science!

But what is mold? What makes it grow?

What is Mold?

Mold is something that we often take for granted, as something that makes us have to throw the
bread away or the cheese smell bad.

Mold is, in fact, a fascinating organism which has had many different uses over the years and our
lives would not be the same without it.

Most of us know that food seems to become moldy more quickly in the summer than in the winter
when it is colder. Food in refrigerators seems to keep longer than food left out in the sun. Is this
true? Does temperature really affect the rate at which mold grows?

Important Note

Please note that some people are allergic to mold; ask your doctor or parents. If this is the case, do
not pick the Mold Bread Experiment. Always wear gloves and a mask, wash your hands, and don’t
eat or drink whilst you are performing this study.

Performing the Mold Bread Experiment

Hypothesis

In the Mold Bread Experiment we are trying to prove that;

"Mold grows quicker at higher temperatures."(Hypothesis)

What You Need for the Mold Bread Experiment

 15 slices of bread. Any sort will do but it is perfectly fine to use cheap white sliced bread as then
you will know that all of the slices are a similar size, weight and thickness. You must make a note
 of the brand and use-by date so that anybody else wanting to repeat the Mold Bread Experiment
can use the same type.

 15 sealable sandwich bags

 1 piece of film or clear plastic with a 10x10cm grid drawn onto it

 Q-Tip

 Clean knife

 Chopping board

 Sticky labels

 Marker pen

 Mold Spores - if you can’t get these from your school don’t worry. There are mold spores all
around us in the air which will eventually grow on the bread but your experiment will take longer.

 Mask

 Gloves
Method

1. Using the sticky labels and the marker pen label the bags. Mark 5 bags as ‘A’, 5 as ‘B’
and 5 as ‘C’. You also need to label each set of bags 1 to 5.
2. Cut the bread into 10 x 10 squares using the chopping board and knife.
3. Inoculate the bread thoroughly with the mold solution. Try to coat each slice with a similar
amount of the culture although this can be difficult.
4. Put one slice of this bread into each bag and seal the bags tightly.
5. Put the 5 ‘A’ bags into the freezer, the 5 ‘B’ bags into the refrigerator and the 5 ‘C’ bags
somewhere safe in a warm room. Because the bags in the freezer and fridge will not be
getting much light it is best to cover the ‘C’ bags to make sure that light is a constant.
6. Every 24 hours, preferably at exactly the same time every day, using the plastic grid,
count the number of square centimeters of mold on each slice of bread. If the mold
covers more than half a square, count it as 1cm, if less than half a square, count as 0 cm.
You must never open the bags.
7. You should repeat these counting processes for 10 days or until there are significant
measurable results.
8. Keep a careful note of your results for each slice of bread for the entire duration of the
experiment. You can even take pictures or draw the slices if you want to be really
scientific!
9. Average the results for sample types A, B and C.
10. Once you have finished, throw out all of the bags without opening them.
Results

Because each square of bread is 100 cm2, you can express your results as a percentage. For each
of the bread types, A, B or C average the amount of mold grown over the ten days and write these
figures into a table.

You can then plot this information onto a graph and begin to explore your results. You can plot the
amount of mold on each bread sample and compare it to the number of days, like in the diagram
below. This can be done with a sheet of graph paper and colored pens or on a computer.

Is the Graph Correct?

 Could you replicate the graph below or is your graph different? We have done this, but will not give
you our answer, so you can test for yourself!

Why are the Results Important?

The food industry spends millions of dollars every year on refrigeration and it is very important that
they know what temperature they need to stop mold from growing. Moldy food must be thrown away
and this costs restaurants and manufacturers a lot of money.

For companies using mold to make food or medicine they need to know at which temperature mold
grows best. The faster the mold grows, the quicker they can sell their product and make money.

Further Experiments

Now that you have finished and obtained some results, maybe you want to see if other variables
affect the rate at which mold grows. Maybe you could keep the temperature the same for all of the
samples but use different types of bread.

You could try adding moisture to the slices or putting different amounts of sugar or lemon juice onto
the slices. As long as you only vary one thing at a time, you can make some interesting studies
about mold.

Temperature is not the only thing that affects the rate of mold growth so feel free to try and find out
more about this interesting organism.

Facts About Mold

 Mold is not a plant but a fungus like mushrooms and toadstools. It grows on food and other
organic matter, breaking it down into slime and extracting nutrients for growth.

 Alexander Fleming discovered that a common type of mold fungi kills germs. From this, he made a
medicine called penicillin which has saved millions of lives over the last 80 years. Many other life-
saving drugs are made from chemicals obtained from mold.
 Will it Float or Sink?
The Salt Water Egg Experiment explains why materials (such as an egg)
float more in salt water than in fresh water.

Eggs Experiment with Salt Water, Waleed Alzuhair

Have you ever tried swimming in the sea? Did you notice that you could float more easily in the open
waters than when you're swimming in fresh water or even in a swimming pool? This experiment will
help you understand why!

Materials

For the Salt Water Egg experiment you will need the following materials:

 Table salt
 Two containers

 Tablespoon

 Tap water

 Two raw eggs

Procedures

1. Fill the two containers with tap water.

2. Add about 6 tablespoons of salt in one container and stir it well with a tablespoon until the
salt has completely dissolved in the water.
3. Place one egg in each of the containers and observe which one of the eggs float in the
container and which one sinks.

Discussion

The explanation behind this phenomenon is simple - DENSITY! In the Salt Water Egg experiment,
you have observed that the egg placed in saltwater floated and the one in tap water didn't. Because
saltwater is denser than fresh water, the egg does not end up sinking like it usually does!

Why is this so? Let's first discuss the definition of density and why objects sink. Density refers to the
amount of matter contained in a given space or volume. When there's more amount of matter in a
given space or volume, the object is then considered denser and at the same time heavier.
However, this doesn't mean that density and weight is the same and can be used interchangeably.

Weight refers to the vertical force exerted by a mass of object when subjected to gravity. Unlike
density, weight is dependent on the amount of gravity in a particular place. To make it clearer, let's
take the egg as an example. The egg's density remains the same no matter where you bring it,
whatever the amount of gravity is in that place. However, if you bring the same egg to space, where
there is no gravity, it loses its weight! But its density remains the same. That's the difference
between density and weight - gravity.
 In this experiment, we will be investigating the corrosiveness of soda. If
you are one of those people who can't last a day without drinking soda,
read on.

Corrosiveness of Soda, Daniel Oines

You are probably already aware of the bad effects of drinking too much soda but seeing the effects
of soda first hand will probably be enough to convince you that the bad effects you have been
hearing about are all actually true.

One of the negative effects of too much soda, relative to our experiment, is its effect to our tooth
enamel. In this activity, you will not only discover the extent of the corrosiveness of soda but also
which type of soda is the most corrosive.

Materials

To perform this activity, make sure you have all of the following materials:

 1 small bottle each of Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Mountain Dew and Distilled water
 6 plastic cups

 6 tarnished pennies

 Notepad

 Measuring cup

 Marker for creating cup labels

This experiment is expected to take about one week before you get to see and assess the results.
The longer it takes, the clearer the results will be.

Procedure

Take all the 6 plastic cups and label each using the marker. Assign one cup for each drink - one for
Coca Cola, one for Pepsi, one for Dr. Pepper, one for Sprite, one for Mountain Dew and the last one
for the distilled water. Pour each liquid into the designated cup and drop one tarnished penny for
each labelled cup.

Observe what happens to each penny each day. Take note and record these observations in your
notepad. You may pick the penny out of the cup to look at them closely but make sure you return
them back inside after observing.

When noting your observations, try to observe whether the darker coloured sodas remove the
tarnish from the pennies faster than the lighter-coloured ones. Also take note if the lighter coloured
sodas change colour as they remove the tarnish. Do not forget to compare these observations to
that of the penny soaked in the distilled water. Continue doing this for a week and assess the trend if
there is any.

Discussion

You must have noticed, as days passed by, that the darker-coloured sodas removed the tarnish from
the coins quicker than the lighter coloured ones. This means that the darker-coloured sodas are
stronger and are more corrosive compared to the lighter colour sodas.
The American Dental Association or the ADA has warned people that too much soda could damage
their teeth particularly their tooth enamel. This Corrosiveness of Soda experiment only proves and
supports ADA's position on the said issue. So before you drink another bottle of soda, think again.
You do not have to completely shun sodas from your diet. Just consume in moderation and this will
save you from weakening your teeth or worse!

Why Objects Float or Sink

Now let's go back to the question of why objects float or sink. Placing an object that's denser than
fresh water automatically sinks. In our Salt Water Egg experiment, because the egg is denser than
tap water, it pushes away water particles so it can make space for itself hence the sinking motion.
But in the case of the salt water, since it is heavier than ordinary tap water, it is more capable of
holding the egg up - hence the egg floating. In easier words, objects sink when their own density is
greater than the liquid's density.

Now you must be wondering what's in the salt that makes water denser when mixed with it? When
salt is added and dissolved in water, it breaks down into ions that are then attracted to the water
molecules. This attraction causes them to bind tightly, increasi
 Capillary action is the property of water and other liquids to flow through small
spaces without the aid of, and even in opposition to, external forces like gravity. This
property is how water gets drawn into a sponge and how your hair stays wet even
though the water is being pulled out by gravity. This property is due to the high
surface tension of liquids, which means that liquids like to stick to themselves.
Capillary action is how plants take water in through their roots, or, in cut flowers,
directly through their xylem, the tissue that water flows through in a flower. In a cut
flower, since the roots cannot filter the water, it is absorbed directly into the flower.
This means that by adding a water based dye, like food coloring, you can dye a
flower any color you want.

1. Take your white flowers and trim them with a slanted cut. The shorter their stem is,
the quicker they will change colors. Then put them in a cup of warm water.

2. Add about 30 drops of food dye to your water and place your flowers in the water.

3. Let the flowers sit until they begin to change colors. Ours took about an hour to
change to pink, but the longer the flowers sit the darker the color. You can do this in
the evening and then wake up to see how they've changed in the morning.

Look closely at the flowers to look for evidence of the coloring moving up the stem.
As they change you may see the color literally traveling up the stem. The color may
also move within the petals over time as well. Pretty cool
A Gummy Science Investigation
These look like such fun investigations to do with your kids at
home or school! It could be a great science lesson or a fun
summer project to help with the "Mom, I'm bored..."

I found both of these ideas on Pinterest. You can click on the

link for the gummy bears and the picture for the worms to head
over to the original blogs for complete directions. I know my
Kinders would especially love the gummy worms! I would
combine the two and use the materials in the gummy bear
project and use the worms instead of bears if I were making this
a lesson.

Gummy Bear Science Investigation

This section contains three questions. Question 1 is compulsory and you may choose either
question 2 or 3

2. Question 1 test the candidate¶s command of scientific skills in experimenting as well as

the ability to make reports.

3This question begins with a general statement, e.g. ³ Acidic substances have a sour test´.

The candidate isrequired to give a hypothesis based on the statement. Then, the candidate is
required to described the experiment

based on the following to test the hypothesis

.a. Aim of experiment

b. Identification of variables

c. List of apparatus and materials

d. Procedure

e. Tabulation of data

f. Conclusion