Draft 2 The effects of household chemicals on plants

Student Generated Lab Proposal
The purpose of our lab is test how house-hold chemicals effect a common plant. We hypothesize that the two chemicals; Windex and Dial soap, will both effect the growth, color, width, and health of the two plants, but the Windex will have a harsher effect. Through our studies we plan to see which chemical effects the plants most. This study is relevant because we will test common chemicals that are usually poured down drains, or are in close proximity to the natural world, and we are going to find if this causes any negative effects. We find this research interesting because we are using chemicals that are used everyday and they are disposed of without any consideration to if they might be harmful to nature.
After collecting various articles ranging from effects of acid rain on plants to learning how to take care of your plant correctly, we did not find any article directly related to our topic. Although, from all of the various articles we collected we got general knowledge on methods of experimentation, and an idea of how precise our lab is going to have to be. We can relate our question to the real world because if our hypothesis is proven correctly we will be more conscious of the negative effects these chemicals can have. We also would be able to pass our knowledge on to alert others of these effects, in turn, helping our environment.
At first we ran into many problems with this proposed experiment. We did not know what chemicals to use, how many or what kind of plant to use, or where to store our plants in a green-house to make sure that they will all receive the same amount of sunlight. After running through several different ideas we found a sound experiment. We found that the most effective method would be to grow the plants from seeds and use the chemicals on them through out the stages of growth. At first we were only going to use thirty plants, two experimental groups and a control. Then we decided to use eighty plants and very the concentration of the chemicals on more experimental groups. We will have 20 control group plants, 15 Windex treated plants, 15 plants tested with a lesser concentration of Windex, 15 plants tested with soap, and 15 plants tested with a lesser concentration of soap. We plan to water the plants every other day at 5:00pm. The concentration of the chemicals will be, 25% Windex/soap for the higher concentration and 10% Windex/soap for the lesser concentration. The chemicals will be mixed with tap water. The control group will be watered with tap water as well. Because the winter is coming the plants will be housed in the green-house and will all receive the same amount of water and sunlight. We will include the class by making a chart of our observations during the experiment, and post it weekly in our class room. This chart will let the class know what we are doing and how the plants are coming along. We plan on testing these plants from 10-1 through 12-2. We feel that we can get an accurate reading of how the plants were effected in this time span.

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Here is a list of responses that have been posted to this Study...

• yawn (12/18/02) [ Contributor: me-Section: zinn ]
• Hey that's my project!! (11/12/02) [ Contributor: Kathy Vanger-Section: Zinn ]
• Hey that's my project!! (11/12/02) [ Contributor: -Section: ]
• Up for some plant cleaning? (10/14/99) [ Contributor: Kate, Danielle, Lauren, Lauren, Megan-Section: Cummins ]

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