Alex Breanna Sarah

Common Found around the world Near rivers, lakes, ponds, and other bodies of water Used in fish tanks fast growing fairly simple plants Annual plants germinate, grow, and reproduce in one season Easy to study Model scientific organism About C-Ferns:

Hydrochloric acid (HCl) highly corrosive odorless tasteless colorless can be combined in an aqueous solution MiracleGro liquid houseplant “food” used commercially as a fertilizer provides high quantities of nutrients and minerals Our Experiment Objective observe the effects of HCl and MiracleGro Germination growth rates Hydrochloric acid would be detrimental while the MiracleGro would benefit them. Hypothesis

Sow spores 14 Petri dishes 6 control, 4 HCl, 4 MiracleGro “spore spreaders” paperclip - T shape 80% ethanol solution Gloves Spore spreaders spore solution - suspended using a sterile pipette three drops evenly disperse spores over the surface Step 1:

Make the independent variable solutions: 5% hydrochloric acid solution 5% Miracle-Gro solution 4.75 milliliters of water.25 mL of solute Five microliters added to the appropriate plates Five microliters of water added to the control plates. Step 2:

Dishes placed in bags Stored in light box degrees Celsius Wait Step 3:

Visible signs of growth Spores were counted top left Water is added to allow fertilization And now we wait…. Again. Three weeks later…

9 plates lost Pink contaminant Controls 2, 4, 5, 6, and HCl 2 Melting HCl 3, 8, 4 HCl plate 1 sustained some melting but continued to grow One for the bacteria, one for the heat…

Plate Number of Spores ControlMiracle-Gro Hydrochloric Acid N/A N/A Data

Neither had a great effect on the spores This could be because of: the low concentration of the solutions the amount of solution that was added the loss of so many plates – sufficient trials the heat affected both in a negative manner Introduces new variable –time under microscope light HCl seemed to do better Only one viable plate Possibly due to corrosive qualities Possibly spent more time under light Results:

Making solutions with different concentrations of HCl and MiracleGro and having separate trials for each Finding a way to lower the temperature in the room when examining plates under the microscopes Keeping track of the amount of time each plate spends under the light, try to make them all equivalent Find a way to ensure that the light boxes do not overheat the dishes Things to consider in the future: