Science Fair: Why don’t strawberries grow during the wintertime?
My 6 year old daughter was the inspiration for the PC grow box for her science fair project to figure out why strawberries don’t grow during the wintertime. She started by picking a strawberry plant from our garden (snow still on the ground) and we potted it in a terra cotta pot which she carefully painted ahead of time. We put it in the grow box in our garage with the lights on for 14 hours a day. As she saw significant changes in her strawberry plant we took pictures. After about a month of growing we went through the pictures and she wrote her report explaining the changes.
She definitely had a good time standing by her display proudly telling people about her project and answering any questions that the various visitors had. She did take a break to take a look at some of the other kids displays which I took note of the gardening related ones which would be great for a science projects for any of your budding scientists:
– Seed germination (soil or paper towel)
– How plants grow with different color of lights (colored transparent plastic)
– How plants grow when given different liquids (water, soda, milk, vinager, diet soda)
– Effects of being mean or nice to plants
– Effects of music on plant growth
– Hydroponics
– Effects of temperature on plant growth
What a great science project and I’m sure your daughter learned a lot from doing it. I remember the days of science projects when my girls were in school.
This is great! I may have to borrow your idea when my kids are old enough to have science projects.
This reminded me of one of my science fair projects as a kid. I watered potted plants (I don’t remember what kind) with tap water, salt water, and sugar water to see what happened. I don’t remember exactly what happened to the plants, but I remember enjoying the project.I can’t wait to share stuff like this with my son!
What a great idea!!!
It definately was a blast doing it with her, she is already talking about what she is going to do next year.
Now that’s a great way to bond with family, and it’s educational, AND it’s fun! Great way to inspire your daughter, and I’m sure the other kids had fun watching what happened, too. I used to teach outdoor ed, so it’s always exciting to see the kids learn and have fun, too!