2013 Make Project By: Emma M and Mary N

Project Topic For our Make project, we decided to try to change the color of flowers. We chose to do this project because we wanted to do something fun and creative like this. We got the idea when we saw something about making rainbow roses. We researched about how this was possible and decided we wanted to try changing the color of flowers. We hoped to discover at the end that this project would work, and we also wanted to discover how it works. In our presentation, you will see what we did with our class time and how the two of us worked together as a team. You will also see some documentation, feedback, and how the project turned out in the end.

Video Here is a video that we watched to help us do our project:

Team Meetings Every morning when we would come to class, we would have a team meeting to discuss what we would do that day. Every morning, we would decide we would go check on our flowers to see what had happened over time and take pictures of them for documentation. We then would come inside and research about how to make our project better. There were also days when we would research about the types of flowers we were using. We also spent time researching how the food coloring changes the color of a flower. We then would discuss the materials that needed to be brought in for the next class and who would bring in what. We would end the class working on documentation and uploading the pictures that we had taken of our flowers.

Team Assignments Team assignments included: Materials Documentation Research The two of us took turns bringing in materials and doing documentation. If either of us had time to do research for homework, then we would also do that.

Effort/Teamwork Both of us put in a lot of effort for this project. We both wanted to make the project the best that it could be to get a good grade. We also got along with each other and made a good team. We worked hard and we got our work done. We also were very helpful towards each other.

Research When we first started researching, we saw the project getting done with roses. When this didn’t work out, we found out that daisies and carnations work the best. We also found out that light colored flowers work the best. After our roses died, we thought that they may not have been getting enough sunlight. Because of this, we researched how much sunlight daisies and carnations should be getting, and we found that daisies and carnations both should have full sunlight for the majority of the day. Also while researching, we found out that when a flower is in water, the water travels through tubes in the stem and keeps the petals fresh. When we put the flowerers into colored water, the same process happens, and the color in the water gets into the petals to color them.

Work Plan Our work plan was very lenient. We just wanted to do whatever needed to be done to turn our flowers a different color. We also wanted to experiment with different types of flowers, colors, ect. to see if different variables had different outcomes.

Trials/Experiments We tested three different types of flowers. Pink roses: When we tested the roses, we tried two colors: orange and purple. There was a little bit of a purple tint towards the center, but just barely. We think that that was because the roses were not white. The roses also died very quickly, and we think that could’ve been because they were inside. White daisies: When we experimented with the daisies, we did so outside. We decided to do just one color because we thought it would be easier. There were specks of blue in the petals of some of the daisies, but not a lot. White carnations: We also tried the carnations outside. The first time we did carnations, we tried to put them in some dirt and water them with colored water to see if there would be a different affect. Unfortunately, nothing happened. The second time we used carnations, we put them in water. These ones lasted a long time, but did not color a lot of the flower. The tips of the petals turned a little teal, but not a lot. We tried adding more food coloring to see if it would make the flowers more teal, but nothing happened.

Documentation The two of us were good at making sure to document every day we had class. We would tell what we did that day and what had happened to our flowers over time. We would also include pictures Here is an example:

Feedback We only got feedback a couple of times. We tried to get feedback from someone named Mr. Cryberg, who could help us with the project, but unfortunately our email would not go through to him. This is some feedback that we got from Jessie, who did a similar project:

Conclusion We think that our project probably needed a little bit more time to be successful. While our flowers did color, we wanted to get the whole thing to color, and we were not able to get that to happen in our time frame given. We wanted to research some more ways that would make our flowers dye easier. Something different that the two of us would do is probably experiment with more brands of food coloring. We also would try some more of the flowers inside to see if that would have some sort of affect. Based on our work, our conclusions are that our project turned out well, but it probably could’ve been better with more time.