Question

After her sunlight experiment, Mary observes that the plants in her garden grow when she waters the soil. She wonders if the plants would grow with the same amount of water, but no soil. Using the steps of the scientific method, explain how Mary would conduct a science experiment to test whether plants need soil to grow.

Answer 1

Mary would start with a hypothesis such as, "I believe that plants with no soil will not grow because there are no nutrients coming from the soil for the plant to grow"

Then she would put the plan in place to start her experiment. She will get the same type of seeds, the same amount of water and sunlight. The only difference between the 3 plants is that one plant will have no soil, the second plant will have 1 inch of soil, the third plant will have the correct amount of soil.

She will run the experiment for 2 weeks to see whether the plants have grown and what the conclusion is. She will record how much the plants have grown every day, she will measure the height of each plant.

At the end of 2 weeks, she will gather all her data and come to a conclusion.

Answer 2

Answer:

Mary would use the steps in the scientific method to determine if the plants need soil to grow. She would carry out the steps in the following order:

Make observations: The plants in the garden grow when the soil is watered.

Ask questions: Mary wondered about the presence of soil and asked, Would plants grow even if they weren’t in soil?

Construct the hypothesis and make predictions: Mary hypothesized that plants need only water to grow, but not soil. So, she predicted that a plant put in water instead of soil would still grow.

Test the hypothesis: She put two identical plants in two different boxes: one box with soil and one box with water. Then she placed them in the same amount of sunlight. She added the same amount of water to both boxes each week. Finally, she measured the height of both plants at the start and end of the experiment.

Analyze the results and make a conclusion: At the end of two weeks, Mary measured both plants to determine if they grew. The plant with water grew less than the plant with soil. She concluded that plants need soil, water, and sunlight to grow. Soil contains essential nutrients. When the plant receives sunlight, the water carries these nutrients to various parts of the plant, allowing the plant to grow.

Explanation: