How Does Your Garden Grow?

Sequence of the lesson:

1. Students are provided instructions for the experiment

2. Students make a hypothesis of which 3 growing environments they think the plant will grow best (water and sun, sun no water, or water no sun

3. Students set up their experiment taking pictures and writing a clear explanation of their process. Students insert pictures into a Word document on a computer and type in the appropriate captions for each picture.

4. Students record the time of day and the amount of water added each day (plants 1 and 3 only)

A. Students take pictures of each plant one time each day

B. Students print the pictures of their plants using a photo printer

C. Students measure the height of their plant and label the date and the height of the plant on their picture.

D. Students insert the data of the height and date for each plant into a graph each day.

5. At the end of 4 weeks students make a conclusion of which growing environment is best. They predict what they learned from this experiment and how the information learned could be transferred to other plant varieties. Students create a new experiment using a control group and 2 alternative variables (Examples: peanut butter used as dirt, pot size, amount of water added each day, etc.)

6. Students share their results with the class in a formal presentation

A. Students describe their process of setting up the experiment

B. Students share results from their study using a graph to support their summary (The graph is displayed on 1 " graph paper mounted to cardboard, each line and plant is represented by a different color) The X-axis is labeled "height in inches". The Y-axis is labeled "day".