Plant Power!

Funded Jan 25, 2018

Thank you so much for donating money to my project: Plant Power!

The third-grade class I worked with this year learned about what plants need to grow, and the differences between growing plants in soil and growing plants hydroponically indoors. Our investigation was to see what kind of growing conditions could best support growing vegetables and herbs indoors, so people who have no access to gardens can actually grow their own food. We noted the growth of our different plants - some grown with soil using sunlight, some grown with soil using artificial light, some grown hydroponically in sunlight and artificial light, and some grown in soil with artificial light and sunlight that contained worm casings.

We had 6 groups in the class, each following and comparing the growth of two types of growing conditions. We studied each plant, how tall it grew, how healthy it looked, how many leaves and what size the leaves were. After 6 weeks each group charted their two plants, and created a double line graph to show the results. (After we learned about different ways to display date in charts). We also created a bar graph to show the results of all plants.

Can you guess which growing condition grew best? Hydroponics with artificial light. We concluded that it was because it received the most light (the light was on 24/7) and nutrients, getting the nutrients we added to the water. The plants grown in soil (even the ones in worm casings) did not grow nearly as big!

We got to present our findings at the citywide STEM Fair in NYC last week. It was a huge success and all my students loved seeing their project among the other great science projects presented at the Armory on the Hudson. They also took home medals to mark their participation?”

With gratitude,

Ms. Hidalgo