Sisters students learn about botany

Will seeds sprout faster under a heat lamp? Will wheat seeds sprouted in food coloring change the color of the plant? Or will a little pineapple juice speed up germination?

These are the questions seventh graders at Sisters Middle School answered in a two-week, hands-on project led by life science teacher Carol Packard. Sisters Middle School was one of 10 U.S. schools participating in the fall project sponsored by the Botanical Society of America.

The program, titled Scientific Inquiry through Plants (SIP), teaches scientific concepts in addition to knowledge about plants. Students worked in teams to learn how to conduct scientific inquiry, write their research results and enter their data in Excel spreadsheets. Also, they posted their results on the SIP Web site and interacted with national scientists.

“I think students are motivated by the inquiry itself and by the sharing of information with scientists and peers that are sincerely interested in their research and give thought-provoking feedback necessary to guide the individual teams through the scientific process throughout the inquiry,” said Packard.

Packard said it was exciting for her students to see their work on the Web.

“The Sisters students have done a fantastic job posting research from projects they designed themselves on the Web,” said Executive Director of the Botanical Society of America, William Dahl.

Dahl hopes projects such as SIP will inspire students to follow science in their careers.

“The U.S. is falling dramatically behind in its ability to produce scientists,” said Dahl.

Dahl called science “critical” to our country.

“People, I think, forget how important science is as a whole,” said Dahl. He noted that an understanding of science is necessary to comprehend political issues such as the environment and the economy.

Packard said her student teams liked the project. The Penguins team wanted to know how music would impact seeds. They determined “oldies” made the seeds grow faster. The Mushy Bananas team wondered if liquids such as Coke would make seeds grow faster. They found “just regular water” was best. The Frogs tried growing their seeds in different temperatures and found extreme heat or cold would make the seeds “go kaput.”

The Sisters students’ SIP project research is available online at plantbiology.org.