Name: Shah Sadid_____________________ Date: 5/23____________

Student Exploration: Growing Plants

Vocabulary: compost, fair test, fertilizer, mass, seed, soil, variable

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

1. What do you think plants need to grow and stay healthy?

Plants need sunlight, water, air, nutrients, and the right temperature to grow and stay
healthy___________________________________________________________________
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2. Soil is a combination of tiny rock fragments and decayed plant materials. How do you think
soil helps a plant?

Soil helps plants by giving them support, nutrients, and water

Gizmo Warm-up: Grow the Biggest Plant!

1. In the Gizmo set up the four pots however you like:

 Choose a seed to drag into each pot.
 Click on the light bulbs to turn them on or off.
 Drag the Water slider up or down to set the
amount of water each plant will get.
 If you like, drag fertilizer or compost into a pot.
 When the pots are ready, click Play ( ) and
wait for the simulation to end.

2. How tall was your tallest plant?

Height: 67.4 cm

Mass: 5.6 g

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3. Click Reset ( ) and Clear pots. Run a few more trials to grow the tallest plants you can.
What conditions led to the tallest plant?

Watering my bean plant with 80mL daily keeping two lights on and using fertilizer
with compost it grew better

Get the Gizmo ready:

Activity A:
 Click Reset.
Wet and dry
 Click Clear pots.

Question: Do seeds need water to grow?

1. Form hypothesis: Do you think seeds need water to start growing? Explain why or why not.

Yes, because the water helps move around things inside the plant so it expands it
and sprouts it.

2. Set up Gizmo: In the Gizmo, set up the four pots like this:
 Pot A: Tomato seed, two lights on, 0 mL water per day
 Pot B: Tomato seed, two lights on, 40 mL water per day
 Pot C: Tomato seed, two lights on, 70 mL water per day
 Pot D: Tomato seed, two lights on, 100 mL water per day

3. Experiment: Click Play to start. When the simulation is done, observe the plants.

4. Collect data: Fill in the data table below with the height and mass of each plant on day 50.
(The mass of a plant is the amount of matter in the plant. It is related to how heavy it is.) In
the last column describe what each plant looks like.

Pot Water/day (mL) Height (cm) Mass (g) Appearance

A 0 mL 0 0 Nothing happened
B 40 mL 22.5 2.8 The plant grew slightly
70 mL Peak height reached, and the
C 29.1 3.6 color changed to a nice green
color
100 mL The plant got shorter by 10
D 19.2 2.1
cm and the color changed

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5. Draw conclusions: Do seeds need water to grow? Yes Explain: Seeds need water
to sprout and grow because water helps them start growing and move nutrients
inside the seed

6. Revise and repeat: Is more water always better? Create your own experiments to find the
ideal amount of water for each kind of plant. Explain your findings below.

No more water is not always better because I saw the tomato plant shrink when I gave
it more water

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 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity B:
 Click Reset.
Light and dark
 Click Clear pots.

Introduction: A variable is something that can be changed, such as the amount of light. In a
fair test, only one variable is changed at a time. For example, if you are testing how light affects
plants, you would change the amount of light but give each plant the same amount of water and
the same kind of soil.

Question: How does the amount of light affect how plants grow?

1. Form hypothesis: How do you think the amount of light affects how plants grow?

More light helps plants grow better by giving energy for photosynthesis. Too little
light makes plants weak

2. Set up Gizmo: In the Gizmo, place a bean seed in each pot. Set the Daily water to 70 mL in
each pot. Turn off all the lights in pot A. Turn on one light in pot B. Turn on two lights in pot
C. Turn on three lights in pot D.

3. Collect data: Click Play and wait for the simulation to finish. Fill in the table below.

Pot Number of lights Height (cm) Mass (g) Appearance

A 0 lights 35.3 1.1 Only a stick came out
The plant started growing and
B 1 light 47.7 2.3
sprouting and it is green
the plant grew a lot and its at its
C 2 lights 58.4 5.2 tallest height. Its green a good
amount of beans grew
the plant grew fully and it shrunk
D 3 lights 48.2 8.5
in height, but it is a darker green

4. Draw conclusions: How did the amount of light affect bean plants?

It changed the color a lot, along with changing its height and its mass by a ton

5. Think and discuss: Why do you think plants grown with less light might grow taller than
plants grown with more light? If possible, talk about this with your classmates and teacher.

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 Plants with less light may grow taller because they stretch upward to find more light
so they try to get enough energy for growth

Activity C: Get the Gizmo ready:

Design an  Click Reset.
experiment  Click Clear pots.

Question: You come up with the question! (See below.)

1. Create question: Fill in the blanks below with the variable and the type of plant you would
like to study in this activity. (Do not repeat an experiment you have already done.)

How does Cold affect a Turnip plant?

2. Form hypothesis: What is your hypothesis for the question above?

3. Set up Gizmo: Set up the pots to test the variable you are investigating. Be sure to create a
fair test. Describe how you set up each pot in the table below.

Pot Type of seed Water/day Number of lights Type of soil

A Turnip 10 1 Normal
B Turnip 30 1 Normal
C Turnip 60 3 Normal
D Turnip 90 2 Normal

4. Collect data: Click Play to start. When the simulation is done, fill in the table below.

Pot Height (cm) Mass (g) Appearance

A 21.5 1.1 It was very small and only grew a little bit
It grew a lot now and started sprouting
B 34.2 5.6
along with its nice color
It got a shorter by 4 cm but the color was
C 29.8 4.9
still the same
D 20.2 0.3 The color became darker and it shrunk by 9 cm

5. Draw conclusions: What did you discover? Why do you think it happened that way?

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Plant grows best with 50mL water and 2 lights. Less water and light, slow weak
growth. Too much water and light, fast shorter growth. More water and light slower
growth

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