magnetic+plants

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Title
Magnetic plants

Problem Scenario
This is a test to see if the magnetic force around the magnet effects the plant growth over time

Broad Question
Do magnets effect plant growth?

Specific Question
Does the presence of a magnets effect plant growth?

Hypothesis
The magnets will not effect the plant growth.

General Plan
I will grow 10 plants 5 of the plants will have magnets on the inside connecting through the plastic cup to connect to the other magnet of the other side of the cup. The plant that will be grown is winter rye. The plants will also be grown at the same time so it has the same amount of growing time as the other plants. The plants will also all be watered with the same amount of water.

Potential Problems And Solutions
The plants could be sabotaged by other students and make it so i would not be able to collect my data. But the only solution to that is, have the plants in the science room at all times so no one will be able to do something to them without someone seeing them do so.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns
The only concern would be that the soil gets spilled everywhere and it makes a big mess.

Number Of Trials:
2

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:
5

Number of Observations:
2

When data will be collected
February 11th

Where will data be collected?:
I will be collecting my data at KMS with my science notebook.

Resources and Budget Table

 * Item || Number needed || Where I will get this || Cost ||
 * || magnets || walmart || 4.99 ||
 * || soil || walmart || 8.46 ||
 * || Dixie cups || walmart || 1.98 ||

Detailed Procedure
Two plants will be grown one just regularly and one will have a few magnets in the cup. They will all began growing at the same time allowing them to be able to grow at the same rate and see if the magnets put any kind of boost of being able to grow faster. I will began to let it grow around february 9-10th. Then a month later i will check on the plants and get all the measurements and average the plants with magnets in them and also average the ones that do not have anything in them. Then compare the two averages and see which one grew more.

Time Line
February 9th- planting of the winter rye seeds. March 11th- get measurements of winter rye plants.

Data Table

 * plants with magnets in them || plants without magnets in them ||
 * 15cm || 13.5 ||
 * 11.9cm || 14.6 ||
 * 10cm || 10.3 ||
 * 12.5cm || 11.5 ||
 * 13.4cm || 14.6 ||
 * average: 10.4 || average: 12.9 ||

Results
In the end the hypothesis was right. "The magnets will not effect the plant growth". The data showed that the magnets did not have any growth advantage, this is true because the average for the plants with magnets is actually smaller than the plants that did not grow with the magnets surrounding it.

Conclusion
The hypothesis was, the magnets will not have an effect the plant growth. This statement was true because the winter rye did not grow any faster with magnets being connected and pulling together around the seeds. The data shows that the magnets had no positive effect on the growth of the plants. It actually showed that the plants that grew without magnets around them, grew better than the ones that did them around it.

Discussion
This project was to test if magnets would effect the plant growth over time to make it not grow as much or see if the magnets would actually help the plants grow faster. The magnets did not have any positive effects. This is true because the average of the plants without magnets near it actually had a higher average than the plants that had magnets surrounding the plants. The data was right there and there was nothing wrong with it. It just showed that the plants grew better without magnets near them. It may have been that the magnets did nothing at all or if stronger magnets were placed where the ones that were used it would make the plants be able to grow faster. That is one way it could have been advanced. It could of been improved if there was exact measurements of dirt and the same amount was distributed between all of the cups evenly. It was done by a rough estimation, about three quarters of the cup was filled with dirt and 3 seeds were placed inside of it.

Benefit to Community and/or Science
If the magnets actually did improve plants growth this could help farmers be able to boost their crop production. But because this did not actually work it cannot really benefit anyone or anything. The only good thing is that people like farmers or people who grow things know that this method is not effective. This is true because the average for the plants that were grown with magnets around them was actually smaller that the plants without magnets average. It could mean the magnets have a negative growing boost and make it so that the seed does not sprout as fast or be able to grow as tall as fast as the plants that had nothing around them.

Abstract
The plants were planted and watered successfully for a good amount of time but after i collected my data they were neglected for a while and some have died and some are still starting to die. But they were healthy through out the whole growing process. The plants were successfully planted on February 9th and the data was collected on march 11th. That time span gave the winter rye about a month to grow and be able to get good and useful data to collect. The project went well and i got good quality data with quite a bit of quantity. This project was also fairly simple, which made it easier on me to be able to preform it successfully.