Monday, October 17, 2011

The Children's Science Experiments

Over the past month, each of the kids has designed and conducted a science experiment.  The links (and urls) below are to their reports.  Your comments and/or email feedback are appreciated (we hope to do some revisions/alterations for entry in competitions in the spring).

Sophia's Experiment: The effect of soil on the height of plants
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ES198rbHiuWkGZe6iaWj1iQooVFa7lUrQ0o6BKoJuiY/edit?hl=en_US



Grace's Experiment: The effect of different kinds of Manure on a bean’s length.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13VvfExua7_owP-KtdfK75BqpNNBHcVNFR36Y1AnPYK4/edit?hl=en_US


Eli's Experiment: To find the effect of water quantity on a bottle rocket and find the one that flies the highest.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Os1G20rgi3qKLsvEc8R8e9C9yedmVnecRJdKNmexu1w/edit?hl=en_US

8 comments:

  1. Wow! Great write ups for those experiments. I'm so sorry about that caterpillar Sophia, but you managed some good testing anyway. And Grace your plants look very healthy and how surprising that the goat manure didn't work so well. We've heard here that cow urine works really well as a pesticide so maybe you would like to test that someday. Also they are doing some experiments with homeopathy and plants to see how that might increase growth.
    Eli what a fun experiment and very interesting and strong results. Good discussion about Newton's laws too. It sounds as if you guys are learning a ton and hopefully having fun doing it. I love your graphs.mamo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eli, I really enjoyed reading your science fair project. Your analysis is particularly thoughtful. I have read many similar reports done by high school freshmen, and most were not as thoughtful or insightful as yours. I particularly like the the way you phrased the moderate water amounts as a "happy medium". Classic tradeoff with Newton's laws of action and reaction and the law of inertia. Well done. Mitch

    ReplyDelete
  3. One more thought Eli. Did you notice the overall shape of both of your graphs was very similar? Do you think this is a coincidence?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Grace, my favorite part of your project was in your conclusion where you state, "My experiment is not guaranteed to be correct." You hit on a very important part of science, that experiments need to be repeated many times before results are considered reliable. Good work.

    Mitch

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sophia, Your description of soil formation is very clear, and indicates a high level of understanding. I am impressed that all you guys were able to complete such extensive projects. I think you are ready for high school science.

    Mitch

    ReplyDelete
  6. Grace, I was wondering why manure needs to be aged. Your experiment made me wonder about our own garden this summer. We used a great deal of chicken manure and it did pretty good, not great. Hmmm. Your plants look very healthy. How did they continue to grow? Thanks. Jennifer

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for your comments (and emails). The kids have considered all of the feedback, made some revisions, and will keep your ideas in mind for future study. We continue to welcome your thoughts!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Eli, I was incredibly impressed with your write up that went along with your experiment. You really did an excellent job with your background research. Well done. Jennifer

    ReplyDelete