1 SHU UK Plants in Space

Plants in Space

Meet the team!Adele – RESULTS MONITOR

T’Yana - TECHNICIAN

Meet the team!Evie – TEAM LEADER

Rosie – PUBLICITY MANAGER

What’s our idea?• We decided to focus on light

• Our Aim - to find out if the colour of the light would affect the growth of the plant.

Photosynthesis• Key theme of the project – plants photosynthesising to help the astronauts in space.

Why we focused on plant growth in different lights.• It interested us!

• Research told us that it would be an effective way to grow plants.

• We have previous knowledge of which lights plants absorb.

EQUIPMENT• Blue and red acetate.

• Cress seeds• Soil

• Plastic tubs• Seed trays• Lamp

• Pipettes

Did we succeed?• We did the experiment twice, to

double check our results.

•3 is the magic number.

(3 times is always best!)

• Control variable

Our results

Our results

Advancing our experiment

Test on different plants. Continue using blue light.

Control the control variable more tightly.

Some examples of what we would use…

Buckwheat

Kale

So how did we advance our investigation?

Same experiment

Same control variable

New independent variables

Light intensityWe used a smart phone app to monitor light intensity under all three boxes.

KALE

Colour of filter

Avera

ge n

um

ber

of

kale

gro

wn

1.24 lux 2.48 lux 1.17 lux

BUCKWHEATAvera

ge n

um

ber

of

buck

wheat

gro

wn

Colour of filter

1.24 lux 2.48 lux

1.17 lux

CRESSAvera

ge n

um

ber

of

cress

gro

wn

clear blue red0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Number of Cress Grown

1.24 lux 1.17 lux2.48 lux

Colour of filter

PROBLEMS WITH OUR RESULTS

• Plants left in different positions

• Buckwheat needed different conditions to grow

• Couldn’t get accurate readings with measurements

• Couldn’t control temperature

SO WE CHANGED OUR

EXPERIMENT AGAIN

!

• Just concentrated on Cress.

•Left the plants in the same positions with the same light intensity.

•Same number of seeds in each tray.

B a c k T o B a s i c s

clear blue red0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Colour of filter

Avera

ge n

um

ber

of

cress

gro

wn

Back To Basics

Bibliography • Controlling Plant Growth. BBC Bitesize. [online]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_gateway_pre_2011/living/controlplantgrowthrev1.shtml

• Red and Blue Light effects on plants. eHow. [online] http://www.ehow.com/info_7930505_red-blue-light-effects-plants.html

• Growing cress. GrowVeg.com [online] http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=307

• The Truth About Kale. WebMD. [online] http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/kale-nutrition-and-cooking

• 10 Health Benefits of Buckwheat. Care2. [online] http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-health-benefits-of-buckwheat.html

Danke fürs Zuhören!(thank you for listening!)