Chia Seeds
By Harry Stagaman and Aistis Sadauskas
How will the amount of chia seeds or plants growing in one pot affect the growth measured in height of chia seeds?
Previous Research:
- Chia seeds grow a lot like other seeds.
- Chia seeds need a couple of primary minerals to grow.
Hypothesis:
If there is only one chia seed planted into a cup/pot then it will grow the most because in order for plants to grow they require minerals from the soil and if the soil has more minerals being drained because there are more seeds, then all of the plants won’t grow as much as could be possible with only one seed taking all of the minerals from the soil.
Variables:
Dependent variable: Growth of the chia plant(s) (height measured in cm.)
Control variable: One chia seed planted in one cup.
Extraneous variable(s): Chance (whether or not a chia seed will actually sprout), Soil (if the soil isn't far apart or good enough for the chia seed to sprout), Disease (if a chia plant catches a fungus or bacteria which might slow down its growth), etc.
Lab Set Up:
Procedure:
Plant one (1) chia seed into the first cup/pot
Plant two (2) chia seeds into the second cup/pot.
Plant three (3) chia seeds into the third cup/pot.
Plant four (4) chia seeds into the fourth cup/pot.
Plant five (5) chia seeds into the fifth cup/pot.
Water all the cups/pots regularly.
Measure growth with ruler. For the first cup/pot measure how tall the plant is
Measure for the second-fifth cups/pots. Record the shortest and tallest sprouts
Average all of the plants from each cup/pot.
Data: We took data on how tall the shortest and tallest chia plant was, and the height average of all of the chia plants in cups that had more than two plants.
Conclusion
Results & Graph
None of the cups sprouted as many seeds as they were supposed to except for Cup 1. The tallest sprouts were from Cup 4.
Graph:Many cups didn't have the amount of seeds that were required to sprout. Cup 1 had 1 seed sprout. Cup 2 had none. Cup 3 had only two sprout. Cup 4 had 1 sprout. Cup 5 had two seeds sprout. Graph Below Shows Averages.
Conclusion
One major error with the experiment that occurred is that not all of the seeds sprouted. This caused the data very skewed and bad to base any serious conclusion on. Extraneous variables with this lab were the reason why this happened- the chance that seeds might not have embryos, or not sprout for some other reason. Most of the seeds being unable to sprout can be resolved. By using better planting procedure, most of the chia seeds could've sprouted. In the future for a better lab and better results with less errors, the lab should include a way to make the soil more loose and burying the seeds under a centimeter of soil. This will likely allow for all/ most of the desired seeds to sprout. The rest of the procedure would be kept the same.