“Does microgravity affect the germination rate of cotton seeds?”

Information About the Team School: FishHawk Creek Elementary, Hillsborough County Public School Grade Level: 5 Title: Operation Germination of Cotton Seeds Type of Experiment: Flight Experiment, Mission 7 Co-Principal Investigators: Karinna Crespo, Chandrika Ganduri, and Casey Utsler Teacher Facilitator: Mary Vaughn Abstract: Our project is about the germination rate of cotton seeds. We formulated this project, because we were interested in how the germination of cottonseeds in microgravity would affect future space missions and if non-edible plants would germinate in space. Cotton can be made into many things including clothes, food, and medicine. These supplies could be needed by astronauts that go up into space, during missions to the planet Mars.

Question/Timeline Does microgravity affect the germination rate of cotton seeds? Timeline -October 2014: Team members came together as a group, and brainstormed ideas for proposal -November 2014: Team members edit, revise, and perfect proposal for sendoff -December 2014: Team members find out that their project has been selected for this year’s SSEP program -January- May 2015: Team works on, and finishes, Earth-based data collection

Ground Truth Data For our ground truth data, we did experiments to have more information to back up our hypothesis. Earth- Based Experiments: Our team cultivated 5 cotton seeds on felt, to see how the they would grow We used a type 3 FME tube with seeds in it, and did a mini experiment to see how the seeds reacted to their tight environment

Predictions of Space Results We believe that… 1)Geotropism will affect the seeds. 2)The amount of sunlight will most likely affect the seeds’ germination.

DateSeed 1Seed 2Seed 3Seed 4Seed 5 1/8/15Seed placed 1/9/15Coat is chipped No growthSharp point Coat is chipped 1/12/15Small stubGerminated slightly Germinated slightly Roots appear 1/13/15Significant germination Covered in white fuzz 1/14/15No major change Bronze coating Spots on bottom 1/15/15Light green root color Slight fuzz growth More fuzz growth Light green root color 1/16/15No major change Shriveled root end No major change Thick fuzz coat More fuzz growth Ground Truth Data: Experiment 2

Thank You! Special thanks to all our sponsors! We so appreciate all of their support! Astronaut Nicole Stott Dr. Derrick Oosterhuis