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Explore the impact of caffeine on plant growth through a controlled experiment. Follow steps to design, execute, and analyze results, drawing solid conclusions for a successful science fair project.
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Choose a TOPIC that interests you! • Life Science….plants, human body, living things • Physical Science…Matter, electricity, sound, light, motion • Earth and Space….weather, stars, sun, earthquakes • Engineering…make a current invention work better
Title • Choose a title that reflects your topic and is in the form a question????????????? How does caffeine affect the growth of a plant? Does a lemon or potato generate more electricity? Would a building be more stable during an earthquake if it’s foundation was embedded in sand or clay?
Purpose • Write 1 to 3 sentences describing what you want to find out in this project. Example: The purpose of this project is to find out if a pea plant will grow taller when given caffeine rather than water.
Develop 3 questions that you want to answer about your topic. Example: Is caffeine a stimulant? How often should plants be watered? Other than water, are there other liquids people use to water their plants? Try to use various sources for your research. Suggested sources: Books Magazines Newspapers Internet Research should be designed to get background information about your topic, before you begin your experiment. Research
Hypothesis Make your guess • Use your research to make an educated guess about how you think your experiment will turn out. • Use the “ If I __________ then I think _____”format Example: If I pour 100ml of coffee on four pea plants and pour 100ml of water in another four pea plants, then I think the plants with coffee will grow taller because caffeine will stimulate the plants.
Procedure • Design your experiment • Design your experiment so that they only test for one thing. • Make sure that you do the same things to all groups of objects being tested. Example: If you are testing plants: • Use the same seeds. • Plant all of them with the same soil. • Put them all in the same amount of light for the same amount of time. • The only thing that should be different about the plants is that one received coffee and the other water.
Materials Make a complete list of everything you will use in your experiment. Tell how many and how much of each object used. Use metric measures only. Example: Water each plant with a 100 ml of water daily. Non-example: Water the plant daily.
Procedure • Write down step-by-step directions on how to do your experiment. • Do not leave anything out! • Make sure you do THREE trials and find the AVERAGE!!!!! • Have a friend or sibling follow your step by step procedure to see if they can recreate the experiment. You will identify what you need to include!!!
Procedure • Get 8 pea plants ( 100 cm tall). • Place 4 pea plants on each tray. • Label one set of plants “Caffeine”. • Label the second set “Water”. • Pour 100ml of coffee( with caffeine ) onto the soil of each plant twice a week. • Pour 100ml of water onto the soil of each plant twice a week. • Measure each plant with a metric ruler every other day. • Record data in record book.
Results • Using your data write a few sentences how your experiment turned out. Example: From reading my charts and graphs, I know that Plant Group #1 (water)grew an average of 7 mm with 100ml of water. Plant Group #2 (caffeine) grew and average of 14 mm with 100ml of water. The Plant Group that was given coffee grew 7 cm more on the average than the Plant Group that was given water.
Conclusion • Write down why you think your experiment turned out the way it did, include if your hypothesis was supported or not. • Restate your hypothesis • Include whether your hypothesis was supported or not supported • Draw conclusions about why your results turned out how they did. • Ask a new question!!!!! What if? I wonder?
Conclusion • Example: My hypothesis was supported. The plants that were watered with coffee ( caffeine ) grew taller than those that were given water. Therefore, caffeine has a positive effect on the growth of pea plants. This may be due the fact that caffeine is a stimulant. The caffeine could have stimulated the plant to grow.
Future Considerations • Tell what variable you would change if you could do the experiment again. • Tell how you might take your experiment to the next step.
Future Considerations • Example • If I could do this experiment again , the variable I would change would be the amount of caffeine I would place in each plant group. I would use 50ml for plant group #1, 100ml for plant group #2, and 150ml for plant group #3. I would also have three “control groups” of plants. One would get 50ml of water. One would get 100ml of water. And one would get 150ml of water. I want to see which amount of caffeine helps plants grow the tallest.
Helpful Resources Science Fair Web Pages http://www.sciencebuddies.org/index_A.htm Best site for help through out project! http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/fair.html This is a good site explaining the parts of a science fair project. http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/jtindell/ A web site for children to use in setting up their science fair project http://school.discovery.com/sciencefaircentral A great site! It has info for parents, teachers, and students. It has project ideas, research tools, and tip sheets for all kinds of projects.
Bringing It Together Keys for success: • Make a time-line and stick to it. • Parental support • Ask questions • Break it up into manageable chunks
