flower children's proposal

Student Generated Lab Proposal
The purpose of our lab is to determine the most appealing characteristics in flowers to both land and air pollinators. We hypothesize that tall flowers containing bright colors will attract the largest amount of these pollinators. However, we believe that odor will play a significant role to nocturnal pollination. By studying the flowers we will categorize pollinators and their floral interest to determine which species will last longer due to excessive pollination. With the growing popularity of floral landscaping it will be beneficial to know how fast the flowers planted will reproduce due to pollinators. Taking into consideration the increased rate of extinction among certain species of flowers, we hope to be able to recreate the ideal pollination characteristics of the dying species in order to prolong its life span. We think that it will be interesting to witness firsthand how flowers attract certain kinds of pollinators.
After collecting a variety of articles related to different aspects of pollination, we obtained an extensive background on the subject. We discovered basic ideals of pollination, articles about specific pollinators, and hypotheses about pollination. We found specific information about flowers in our area, and maps that will guide us to locations containing an abundance of flowers. We also found articles covering information concerning the eminent danger of flower extinction due to the urbanization of their natural habitats. An author of another article proposed a solution to this apparent problem by raising cultures of bees that are apt pollinators for certain flowers. Through reading one article we learned that when we observe our flowers we have to consider land pollinators as well as air pollinators. Articles written about other specific experiments gave us equations that we can use to process the data that we collect during our observations. By researching a small topic like pollination we may discover something new that will enable us to further understand the cycle of our ecosystem.
With this research providing background information, we plan to study a variety of flowers in predetermined areas on our campus. We will observe flowers during the day, as well as at night time. Our group will categorize flowers by height, intensity of color, shade of color, odor, and diameter of bloom. We hypothesize that this study will be statistically sound because of the vast amount of data that we are going to collect. To collect this data, we will create a five point scale to measure the scent of the flower. We will need rulers to measure the bloom, cameras to document the flowers that we study, and if available-night vision goggles. We will use the class to derive to further develop our own questions about the subject. Using our pictures of certain flowers we will propose questions to the class about the specific flowers. Our data sheet and time line will be determined at a later date due to the lack of information that we have at the time.

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• students (10/10/99) [ Contributor: sean collins-Section: cummins ]

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