Do Plants Grow More If You Lecture To Them?

Mr. Branshaw, Mr. Huerto, Mr. Miller

Teacher: Bill Nye The Science Guy

Period 5

3/15/10

Table of Contents:

Introduction Pg. 3

Problem Pg. 3

Hypothesis Pg. 3

Review of Literature Pg. 3-4

Materials and Procedures Pg. 4-5

Data & Results Pg. 5-6

Conclusion Pg. 7

Acknowledgements Pg. 7

Bibliography Pg. 8

Introduction:

Plants grow by the process of photosynthesis, which takes place with inside the chloroplasts. There are two different reactions that take place within the chloroplasts, light dependent reaction and Calvin Cycle. The light dependent reaction takes place within the thylakoids, where light is used to break H2O into Oxygen and ATP. The Calvin Cycle then uses the ATP and CO2, it gets from the atmosphere, to produce complex sugars that make up the plant and are used for growth.

The reason for our investigation into growth effects when we talk to plants is based on several premises. First, it is tale told by many plant growers, that if you talk to plants then they will grow faster and we wish to test this hypothesis. Second, plants are vital to sustaining life on our planet by creating enough oxygen for living organisms to breath. Lastly, effective strategies to increasing plant growth are sought after by everyone from farmers to people who have household plants.

Problem:

If you lecture to plants will they grow faster?

Hypothesis:

If plants grow in response to the quality of the lecture, then the Mr. Miller lectured plant will have the most growth compared to Mr. Branshaw and Mr. Huerto.

Review of Literature

The genotype of a plant affects its growth, for example selected varieties of wheat grow rapidly, maturing within 110 days, whereas others, in the same environmental conditions, grow more slowly and mature within 155 days.[1]

Growth is also determined by environmental factors, such as temperature, available water, available light, and available nutrients in the soil. Any change in the availability of these external conditions will be reflected in the plants growth.

Biotic factors are also capable of affecting plant growth. Plants compete with other plants for space, water, light and nutrients. Plants can be so crowded that no single individual produces normal growth. Optimal plant growth can be hindered by grazing animals, suboptimal soil composition, lack of fungi (which help with making certain nutrients available for the plants), and attacks by insects or plant diseases, including those caused by bacteria, fungi, viruses, and nematodes.[1]

Simple plants like algae may have short life spans as individuals, but their populations are commonly seasonal. Other plants may be organized according to their seasonal growth pattern: annual plants live and reproduce within one growing season, biennial plants live for two growing seasons and usually reproduce in second year, and perennial plants live for many growing seasons and continue to reproduce once they are mature. These designations often depend on climate and other environmental factors; plants that are annual in alpine or temperate regions can be biennial or perennial in warmer climates. Among the vascular plants, perennials include both evergreens that keep their leaves the entire year, and deciduous plants which lose their leaves for some part of it. In temperate and boreal climates, they generally lose their leaves during the winter; many tropical plants lose their leaves during the dry season. [2]

In physiology, respiration (or just breathing) is defined as the transport of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction. This is in contrast to the biochemical definition of respiration, which refers to cellular respiration: the metabolic process by which an organism obtains energy by reacting oxygen with glucose to give water, carbon dioxide and ATP (energy). Although physiologic respiration is necessary to sustain cellular respiration and thus life in animals, the processes are distinct: cellular respiration takes place in individual cells of the animal, while physiologic respiration concerns the bulk flow and transport of metabolites between the organism and the external environment.[3]

Materials:

·  4 Juvenile pea plants

·  ½ cup measuring cup

·  Mr. Miller’s Classroom

·  Mr. Huerto’s Classroom

·  Mr. Branshaw’s Classroom

·  Secret classroom behind the middle school

·  Centimeter Ruler

·  Water

·  Mr. Miller, Mr. Huerto, and Mr. Branshaw lectures

Procedures:

  1. Buy four juvenile pea plants at Home Depot. All plants should have similar heights
  2. Label each plant with Mr. Miller, Mr. Branshaw, Mr. Huerto, and No lecture respectively by using a permanent marker on the pot provided by Home Depot.

Mr. Miller’s Plant

  1. Mr. Miller’s plant will be placed on his east window in his permanent classroom during school hours.
  2. The plant will listen to five hours of lecture from Mr. Miller Monday-Friday from 8:45-2:45 (include an hour lunch break). It will have Saturday and Sunday as lecture free days.
  3. The plant will be given a half cup of water every day at 12:45pm Monday-Friday. It will not receive water on Saturday and Sunday.
  4. Ms. Trifunivic will be the neutral plant measurer. She will take the measurement of the plant every Friday at 3:45pm. She will measure the length of the stem in centimeters every Friday for six weeks.

Mr. Branshaw’s Plant

  1. Mr. Branshaw’s plant will be placed on his east window in his permanent classroom during school hours.
  2. The plant will listen to five hours of lecture from Mr. Branshaw Monday-Friday from 8:45-2:45 (include an hour lunch break). It will have Saturday and Sunday as lecture free days.
  3. The plant will be given a half cup of water every day at 12:45pm Monday-Friday. It will not receive water on Saturday and Sunday.
  4. Ms. Trifunivic will be the neutral plant measurer. She will take the measurement of the plant every Friday at 3:45pm. She will measure the length of the stem in centimeters every Friday for six weeks.

Mr. Huerto’s Plant

  1. Mr. Huerto’s plant will be placed on his east window in his permanent classroom during the six weeks.
  2. The plant will listen to five hours of lecture from Mr. Huerto Monday-Friday from 8:45-2:45 (include an hour lunch break). It will have Saturday and Sunday as lecture free days.
  3. The plant will be given a half cup of water every day at 12:45pm Monday-Friday. It will not receive water on Saturday and Sunday.
  4. Ms. Trifunivic will be the neutral plant measurer. She will take the measurement of the plant every Friday at 3:45pm. She will measure the length of the stem in centimeters every Friday for six weeks.

Control Plant (No Lecturer)

  1. The control plant will be placed on the east window in the secret classroom behind the middle school.
  2. The plant will not be lectured to at any point in the six weeks.
  3. The plant will be given a half cup of water every day at 12:45pm Monday-Friday. It will not receive water on Saturday and Sunday
  4. Ms. Trifunivic will be the neutral plant measurer. She will take the measurement of the plant every Friday at 3:50pm. She will measure the length of the stem in centimeters every Friday for six weeks.

Data and Results

Table 1

Plant Height in cm for Each Lecture
Week / Mr. Branshaw / Mr. Huerto / Mr. Miller / No Lecturer
1 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 1
2 / 5 / 5 / 6 / 3
3 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 7
4 / 15 / 14 / 25 / 10
5 / 20 / 21 / 38 / 13
6 / 23 / 28 / 42 / 15

Figure 1


Conclusion

Our data shows that lecturing to a plant does in fact cause the plant to grow faster then a plant with no lecture. This is proven in Table 1, where all three of the teachers plant grew faster then the plant with no lecturer. The difference was espically evident with Mr. Miller’s lecture plant growing a total of 27 cm more then the control plant. Our data also shows that when comparing the three teachers, Mr. Miller’s plant grew the most, with Mr. Huerto a distant second, and last but not least Mr. Branshaw’s plant having the least growth of the three. This is evidenced by Table 1 showing that Mr. Miller’s plant grew a total of 42 cm, Mr. Huerto’s growing 28 cm, and Mr. Branshaw’s growing 23 cm. When looking at the data, it was concluded that our hypothesis was in fact correct. We predicted that Mr. Miller would have the most growth out of the three teachers. This hypothesis is proven correct in Table 1 with Mr. Miller’s plant growing a total of 42 cm, Mr. Huerto’s growing 28 cm, and Mr. Branshaw’s growing 23 cm.

Based on our results we learned that in order to stimulate pea plant growth, any lecture style will show better total growth when compared to pea plants that are provided no lecture. We also learned that Mr. Miller’s soft spoken and calm lecture style was clearly the best choice to stimulate growth in pea plants. In addition, it was shown that Mr. Branshaw’s emotional and loud lecture style is the least prefered lecture style when trying to grow pea plants. Mr. Miller being the most favorable lecture for growth is partially unexpected because he is the clear choice for the least liked biology teacher by human students. There seems to be no experimental errors with the exception there being unproven reports of Mr. Miller putting a white powder called “miracle grow” in his plant after week 4. This experiment’s findings will be useful in the future, in that farmers across the nation could potentially play lectures to their crops in order for faster and better growth. These findings could potentially solve many starvation problems across the world. However, these results will need to be replicated using other plants in order for it to be useful to farmers. In conclusion, for future experiments, it would be advisable to have the plants under survalience during school hours in order to prove that the plants were not tampered with. In addition, if possible make sure the plants are given the same amount of light and air during the six week period.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Bill Nye the science guy for being such an amazing teacher and inspiration to our group. I would also like to thank Ms. Trifunivic for her help with measuring the plants every Friday.

Bibliography

Crandall-Stotler, Barbara. & Stotler, Raymond E., 2000. "Morphology and

classification of the Marchantiophyta". page 21 in A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), Bryophyte Biology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-66097-1

Goyal, K., Walton, L. J., & Tunnacliffe, A. (2005). "LEA proteins prevent protein

aggregation due to water stress". Biochemical Journal 388 (Part1): 151 – 157. doi:10.1042/BJ20041931. PMID15631617. Archived from the original on 2009-08-03. http://www.webcitation.org/5il9QhYT0.

Nilsson, Goran E. (2010). Respiratory Physiology of Vertebrates. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-70302-4.

Robbins, W.W., Weier, T.E., et al., Botany:Plant Science, 3rd edition , Wiley

International, New York, 1965.

Schuster, Rudolf M., The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America, volume VI,

pages 712-713. (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1992). ISBN 0-914-86821-7.

Van den Hoek, C., D. G. Mann, & H. M. Jahns, 1995. Algae: An Introduction to

Phycology. pages 457, 463, & 476. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-30419-9

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