Seed Survival

By Brittany, Chakiyah, Darrius, & Tanaya

We did a lot of research about plants to see how they can grow, how they can be killed, and how they can be taken care of. We wanted to know about plants because they are an important part of nature, and they express spring.

Our questions were:

1. How much water do plants need?

2. What kind of soil do plants grow well in?

We tried to answer our question with experiments. We used two kinds of soil: outside soil (from our garden site), and inside soil (store-bought potting soil). We put one of each seed in the outside and the inside soil. Our seed kinds were: Yarrow, Verbena, Salvia, and Lima Bean. We measured the water we gave them, and made sure they all got the same amount. The measuring cup was too much, so we measured with our hand.

None of the seeds grew but one. The yarrow seed in the inside soil started to grow a little and then died. We think they didn't grow because of too much water and the soil getting hard and packed. We also studied the class beans to get some more information, because some of the class beans grew plants and some didn't. We made our information into a list of directions for growing plants.

How to grow plants

1. Have healthy soil. Take out the rocks.

2. Put soil in container

3. Plant a seed or small plant.

4. Make sure the seed is under the soil.

5. Water it. Check water everyday.

6. Don't over water the plants.

7. Make sure no one pats down the soil.

8. Put the container in the sunlight.

9. Don't touch the roots.

10. Don't break the plant.

11. Add soil if needed.

12. Take away dead leaves.

13. Add plant food (fertilizer) if needed.

For future plans, we would like to try again with different plants. We might like to try to grow a tree. If we tried again to make these same plants grow, we would add Vitamin E to the outside soil, and remove the pieces of trash to try to make it healthier. We would use more soil and bigger containers to give the roots more room. When the plants grow, we will try not to pat down the soil or break off the stems.

A future question to answer about plants might be: Do you have to change the soil in the container when the seed starts to open?