Science experiment need ideas/help.

[tropical_fishy]

Well, plants can germinate in the dark, they just don't form any green shoots.

Umm... I was gonna recommend a gauss gun or a micro rail gun, because those are always highly impressive, but I'm lost with plants.

You know what I meant. I just think the experiment should pose a bigger question than, "where does my plant grow good?"

I think yuo could go places with the cloning idea. Just my $.02

[Gunther_mag_user]

Wow, thanks for all the responses! I apprecciate it!


Topaz: Just wondering, how would I emplement a guass gun? Magnet string to distance /speed? It would be mega cool if I could pull off an effective rail gun.

Pyro: Cool beans, Great Idea!

Moemag: the co2 enviroment sounds like it would be awesome. Just wondering, what kind of experiment could I apply pi to? How much energy a plant produces would blow him away, and I need to really nail this experiment.

Jonneh: I don't know anything at all about that, I'm looking for soemthing that I have some sort of background in. Great thought though!

Dr shock: That sounds way too advanced for me. We aren't really covering plants at the moment, but my teacher really likes them because the results will not lie. If I had some sort of resource about cloning that would be awesome, but I don't really want to attempt something that I have no knowledge of.

Pacifist: That is a good Idea, I could probably mix in that with some other Ideas.(Energy production for example.)

Skittle: I like your thinking, but I am looking for something a little more difficult. I don't really mind putting alot of work into a project(especially when my credit depends on it.)

Fishy: I agree 100%. I'll look into the cloning, but I don't know alot about that.


Thanks for the responses everyone! I aprecciate it, I really do. No one in my class was willing to help me or give me ideas .

[topazpaintball]

This page has a lot of projects, ranging from basic to highly advanced.

http://www.electronics-lab.com/proje...017/index.html
is a coil gun easily made

http://www.geocities.com/physicsthings/microrailgu.htm

is a simple but functional rail gun

[Eagle]

ever seen the movie 'The Manhattan Project' with John Lithgow?

[Gunther_mag_user]

ever seen the movie 'The Manhattan Project' with John Lithgow?

Alas, no

[MoeMag]

Moemag: the co2 environment sounds like it would be awesome. Just wondering, what kind of experiment could I apply pi to? How much energy a plant produces would blow him away, and I need to really nail this experiment.

The co2 environment thing is something I have been tempted to do for a long time just to see what happens. I figure I could get a big glass pickle jar, mount some valves and gauges to the top, and run a co2 remote line to it. Co2 is heavier than air, so let the co2 displace the regular atmosphere out then seal it and let it sit like that. I would imagine you would have to replenish the co2 supply every once in a while. If you got really fancy you could get gas analyzers and find out how much oxygen the plant produces for a given time. Then you could figure out how to sustain a spacecrafts oxygen supply with plants using simple calculations

The pi thing... well you could present your project with some humor by addressing a stupidly simply question and blowing out of the water...
-How to draw a circle
-How many pieces of pi does it take to go around a pi pan? 2pi! (6.28319)

Just stupid nerdy stuff like that.

Then as far as the "how much power a plant produces"...
I vaguely remember reading about the chemicals that are produced in one of the chemical processes that plants do, as being measured in joules... I think. Anyway you will have to do some serious research to figure that one out.

[SpecialBlend2786]

I competed in 10th and 11th grade, got 1st place county wide both years and 2nd place Statewide my junior year.

hit me up on AIM/MSN/Yahoo/ICQ or email me if you want some tips or anything.

[Ole Unka Phil]

You could try and measure how much I don't give a dam anymore?

[thE_mAd_Dr_shOck]

A joule is a unit of energy. One calorie is 4.19 joules and one calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise 1 g of water by 1 degree C @ STP. Determining the energy liberated or absorbed in a single reaction itself can be calculated on paper and probably won't do you much good since, no matter how you slice it, the reactions are the same although not in the same abundance amongst different plants because of different sizes, genetic factors and growing conditions, etc. However you can determine the amount of energy the whole plant holds through calorimetry. That, however, will tell you the TOTAL energy of all the plant's chemicals, not just those produced through photosynthesis. If you wanted to just do the sugars you'd have to do an analytical seperaition.

[Target Practice]

How about doing a study how being on the internet to much and not paying enough attention can lead to someone getting a 49% in a goddamn sophomore science class.

[tropical_fishy]

A joule is a unit of energy. One calorie is 4.19 joules and one calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise 1 g of water by 1 degree C @ STP. Determining the energy liberated or absorbed in a single reaction itself can be calculated on paper and probably won't do you much good since, no matter how you slice it, the reactions are the same although not in the same abundance amongst different plants because of different sizes, genetic factors and growing conditions, etc. However you can determine the amount of energy the whole plant holds through calorimetry. That, however, will tell you the TOTAL energy of all the plant's chemicals, not just those produced through photosynthesis. If you wanted to just do the sugars you'd have to do an analytical seperaition.

You'd have to have a pretty good chemistry background to pull this off, knowledge of entropy (or enthalpy? It's been a while; thermodynamics, in any case), a basic understanding of the (intricate) way chemistry and biology work within a plant, as well as a calorimeter, which your school may or may not have. I also don't know how it would work as far as hooking a plant up to a calometer; as far as I know, they only measure the heat of a reaction. This kind of experiment would be really difficult to control, because, chances are, your school has crappy tools.

MoeMag, I'm curious, how would you go about removing all the oxygen from a system like that? I DO know how to find out how much oxygen a plant produces over a given amount of time, though; we definitely did an experiment like that senior year in AP Bio. To the OP: Ask me (or Specialblend, he probably remembers it too) about it if you'd like to do that kind of thing. My screenname is up there^ if you'd like to bounce ideas around.

[MoeMag]

. However you can determine the amount of energy the whole plant holds through calorimetry.

[thE_mAd_Dr_shOck]

You'd have to have a pretty good chemistry background to pull this off, knowledge of entropy (or enthalpy? It's been a while; thermodynamics, in any case), a basic understanding of the (intricate) way chemistry and biology work within a plant, as well as a calorimeter, which your school may or may not have. I also don't know how it would work as far as hooking a plant up to a calometer; as far as I know, they only measure the heat of a reaction. This kind of experiment would be really difficult to control, because, chances are, your school has crappy tools.

Nah... I did something similar my sophmore year in high school involving peanuts. The math is acutally really, really easy since all you have to do is relate the temperature the water raised to its baseline (after you've found Hcap through calibration). You can make a bomb calorimeter out of some styrafoam containers, some water, some fire (or a suitable chemical, other crap to force rxn) and a thermometer. Its pretty accurate, too, considering its ghetto as hell. You'd have to have a calibration substance to burn in it first but after that you'd just toast your plant sample (after weighing it, that is). Considering sugars oxidize readily you can calculate the energy released during combustion and make a fair extimate off of that based on literature and a baseline measurement. It'd work quantitatively for overall energy but definately not qualitatively as to the source.

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/ch...s/LabNet/bomb/ explains it pretty well.

Ideally, I'd tell him to do a two phase extraction from the plant material, a individual component seperaition using chromatography, identification of each individual component with FTIR or NMR and THEN do both bomb calrimetry + AA spec or photometric titration because I'm anal... But this is just high school. Not a senior thesis.

[billybob_81067]

I'm anal...

Tee Hee Hee...

[SpecialBlend2786]

Tee Hee Hee...

Only a redneck...