Classroom Experiments
(Plant
– A – Plant)
Abstract
Plants play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle representing both a large carbon pool, as carbon stored in plant biomass, and a large carbon flux in which plants take up carbon (dioxide) with water and sunlight during photosynthesis. Because the role of plants is so important a team of scientists in the Czech Republic, as part of the GLOBE Carbon Cycle Project have developed a set of Plant-A-Plant Classroom Experiments that allow students to explore the necessary resources needed for plant growth and demonstrates how CO2 is incorporated into plant biomass.
During the Plant-A-Plant experiments students will have hands-on experience cultivating their own plants, while manipulating environmental conditions including light, mineral nutrition, water and CO2. Throughout the activity students will complete different stages of the scientific process including hypothesis formation and a discussion of experimental results with peers.
Plant-A-Plant activities can be done on their own or as part of a larger unit on the carbon cycle. The knowledge students’ gain about the storage of carbon in biomass and the limiting resources of plant growth provide solid background for both the Carbon Cycle Field Activities and the Carbon Cycle Modeling Activities.
After seed germination is completed experiments can be performed in any combination or order. To learn more about seed germination you will need to select an experiment to perform.
If students have performed a few experiments using the carefully designed procedure, they should be ready to design their own experiments to explore the influence of multiple factors (e.g. light and water) or another research question they may have.
Plant-A-Plant Objectives
By participating in Plant-A-Plant experiments students will:
- Formulate their own hypotheses about plant growth and the effects of varying resources
- Conduct experiments based using provided procedures
- Record observations and measurements made during plant growth
- Evaluate obtained data
- Make conclusions based on observations and data, and evaluate the validity of the original hypotheses