Student Exploration: Growing Plants Answer Key

Vocabulary: compost, fertilizer, mass, seed, soil, variable

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

[Note: The purpose of these questions is to activate prior knowledge and get students thinking.
Students are not expected to know the answers to the pre-Gizmo questions.]

1. What do you think plants need to grow and stay healthy?

Seeds need water, light, and nutrients (usually from soil) to grow into healthy plants.

2. Soil is a combination of tiny rock fragments and decayed plant materials. How do you think
soil helps a plant?

Soil provides nutrients and water to a plant. In addition, it allows the roots to anchor the
plant.

Gizmo Warm-up: Grow the Biggest Plant!

1. In the Gizmo set up the three pots however you like:

• Choose a seed to drag into each pot.
• Click on the light bulbs to turn them on or off.
• Drag the Water slider up or down to set the
amount of water each plant will get.
• If you like, drag fertilizer or compost into a pot.
• When the pots are ready, click Play ( ) and
wait for the simulation to end.

2. How tall was your tallest plant? Answers will vary.

3. Click Reset ( ) and Clear pots. Run a few more trials to grow the tallest plants you can.
What conditions led to the tallest plant?

Answers will vary.

[The tallest possible plant in the Gizmo is an 80-cm bean plant. This can occur with two
lights on, 80 mL of water per day added, and the soil fertilized. There is some randomness
in the model, however, so these ideal conditions will only rarely produce an 80-cm plant.]
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A:
• Click Reset.
Wet and dry
• Click Clear pots.

Question: Do seeds need water to grow?

1. Form hypothesis: Do you think seeds need water to start growing? Explain why or why not.

Answers will vary. [Plants need water for two reasons. Water is used in the photosynthesis
reaction to form simple sugars. These sugars are linked into more complex molecules that
make up the structure of the plant. Water also helps each plant cell maintain its shape.]

2. Set up Gizmo: In the Gizmo, set up the three pots like this:
• Pot A: Bean seed, two lights on, 0 mL water per day
• Pot B: Bean seed, two lights on, 50 mL water per day
• Pot C: Bean seed, two lights on, 100 mL water per day

3. Experiment: Click Play to start. When the simulation is done, observe the plants.

4. Collect data: Fill in the data table below with the height and mass of each plant on day 50.
(The mass of a plant is the amount of matter in the plant. It is related to how heavy it is.) In
the last column describe what each plant looks like.

Pot Water/day (mL) Height (cm) Mass (g) Appearance

A 0 mL
B 50 mL
C 100 mL
0 0 No plant grows at all.
Varies Varies A healthy plant grows.
A healthy plant grows, usually a
Varies Varies
bit taller than the plant in Pot B.

5. Draw conclusions: Do seeds need water to grow? (Was your hypothesis correct?)

Yes. The seed that was given no water did not grow. The two seeds that were given water
grew into healthy plants.

6. Revise and repeat: Is more water always better? Create your own experiments to find the
ideal amount of water for each kind of plant. Explain your findings below.

Answers will vary. [In the model used in the Gizmo, each type of plant has a different ideal
amount of water. For tomatoes it is 60 or 70 mL per day, for beans it is 80 mL per day, and
for turnips it is 40 mL per day. Plants that are over-watered can develop root rot and die.]
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity B:
• Click Reset.
Light and dark
• Click Clear pots.

Question: How does the amount of light affect how plants grow?

1. Form hypothesis: A variable is something that can be changed in an experiment, such as

the amount of light. How do you think the amount of light affects how plants grow?

Answers will vary. [Based on prior observations some students may have noticed that plants
grown in dim light may grow taller at first and have smaller leaves.]

2. Experiment:
• Set up the three pots with 50 mL of water per day, plain soil, and turnip seeds.
• Turn on three lights over pot A, one light over pot B, and zero lights over pot C.
• Click Play.
• After 30 simulated days, click Pause ( ).

3. Collect data: In the table below, describe each plant after 30 days.

Number of Height (cm) Mass (g)

Pot Appearance on day 30
lights on day 30 on day 30
A 2 8 – 10 cm 0.5 – 1.5 g Healthy with visible leaves.
B 1 11 – 14 cm 0.2 – 0.5 g Spindly with tiny leaves. Pale.
Leaves not even visible. Stalk is
C 0 12 – 16 cm < 0.2 g
white in color.

4. Draw conclusions: Select the Data tab. Look at the graphs for Plant Height and Plant
Mass. How did the amount of light affect the growth of the turnip plants?

Plants grown in dim light have small leaves, are a lighter shade of green, and are often taller
than plants grown in bright light. Plants grown in bright light have more mass, larger leaves,
and more leaves than plants grown in dim light. [Students can use the line graphs to
observe how each plant grew over time. In general the plants in dim light grew very quickly
at first, and then more slowly. Plants in full light grew more steadily.]

5. Think and discuss: Click Play and let the simulation continue to 50 days. Based on what you
have seen so far, what do seeds need to grow into healthy plants?

Plants need light and water. [Students might correctly point out that plants also need a
source of nutrients, such as soil.]
 Activity C: Get the Gizmo ready:
Design an • Click Reset.
experiment • Click Clear pots.

Question: You come up with the question! (See below.)

1. Create question: Fill in the blanks below with the variable and the type of plant you would
like to study in this activity. (Do not repeat an experiment you have already done.)

How does light, soil, or water affect a tomato, turnip, or bean plant?

2. Form hypothesis: What is your hypothesis for the question above? Answers will vary.

3. Set up Gizmo: Set up the pots to test the variable you are investigating. Describe how you
set up each pot in the table below.

Experimental design will vary. [Just be sure the student designed a controlled experiment, in
which all variables not being tested are held constant. Below is an example.]

Pot Kind of seed Water/day Number of lights Type of soil

A Tomato 50 mL 3 Plain

B Tomato 50 mL 3 Compost

C Tomato 50 mL 3 Fertilizer

4. Experiment: Click Play to start. When the simulation is done, observe the plants.

5. Collect data: Examine your plant data on the Data tab. Record your results here.

Pot Height (cm) Mass (g) Appearance

A Results will vary. [In general, bean plants grow larger than other types of
plants. For each plant there is an ideal amount of water—too little or too
B
much water results in less growth. Adding fertilizer almost always results in
C larger plants. The effects of compost are positive but less dramatic.]

6. Draw conclusions: What did you discover? Why do you think it happened that way?

Conclusions should agree with the data that was collected.