Blog Post 5: Sammy's Story of the Seed- Audrey

       Through this year I had worked on the Story of the Seed project. With my group consisting of Alia, Elena, Duaa, and Isha we did our experiment on broccoli and vinegar. In our experiment I learned that plants are so dependent on water that there really is no substitute even if the substitute is low in acidity. Something that surprised me in the experiment that some plants with slightly higher concentrations in acidity grew although they appeared to be unhealthy. Something that made me laugh throughout the project was my group mates because they made working on this project more fun than it already was. One thing that made me think deeply about in the project was that all life simply depends on water and with water being used up irresponsibly by humans we put in danger not only ourselves, but all living things around us. The most frustrating part of the project for me generally remembering to water the plants. I always remember a group member reminding me to do so.
     Although that was only my experience. Through Sammy's experience she had learned that taking care of plants is much more difficult that it appears. Something that she was very surprised on was that, "...my plants actually grew!" because she was unsure about all the steps it took to take care of a plant. One thing that made Sammy laugh was her group. A factor that made her think a little deeper was learning more about about the background about how plants grow and how they thrived. For example,"...how the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles affect the plant...". She feels the most frustrating part of the project was having to remember to take care of the plants and just to check on them.

Blog post # 5 - Alia - Aidan's Story

My Story: When reflecting upon the Story of the seed project many thinks come to mind. It is an experience that has lasted the length of the semester and I found it had it's similarities to previous experiences planting thing at home, and differences. The entire study started with a test of the durability of the plants germination against acidity, where we found that they wouldn't grow in any sort of diluted vinegar. Then we moved them out to the garden where we left them to battle the elements, doing what we could to keep them watered and clear of competition.
Over the course of this I have learned about the process of growth, and the delicate balance that makes it possible. I was truly surprised when after being eaten by some sort of creature and being neglected for a few weeks our plant is still struggling along. Which also made me laugh a bit since despite how fragile life can seem, once it is established it will fight. Fight for it's right to survive and continue on. In fact it wouldn't seem that way at first glance, the longer you look the deeper it goes, you can see that the life being established is delicate, finicky, and hard to start. However there was also evidence to negate that, it has struggled to survive for weeks without much care, against plants that are perhaps better equipped to handle the environment, and has somehow made it against insects and other creatures that would have means to destroy it. To simply put it life is complex. So delicate and yet will hold on by the teeth to keep going. Life is determined. It was the delicate side of life that was frustrating, having seedlings die, and having to wait for them to grow. Then I suppose that if i would redo anything about this project, I would have liked to have planted more, and maybe have weeded just a bit more.

Aidan's Story: When asking Aidan questions, there was a theme to be noticed, a fellow curiosity to the delicate nature of life. When asked what he had learned he replied with a remark about how he had learned about how hard plants were to go and how difficult life was to sustain. When asked about what had amazed him he said that he was surprised that they again were so hard to grow, "...life is everywhere, certainly it should be more easy to get it to thrive." Besides this however he also mentioned that his teammates had been rather frustrating, yet amusing in their own way. He mentioned there troubles again and expressed a wish to also have plated more seeds in hope of better outcome. He said that something that made him think deeper was how easily the plants died, which was reminding once again of how delicate all life is, like a flame so easily extinguished.

Blog Post #5 - Genevieve's Story of the Seed - Elena

My response:
When reflecting on what my team has done and experienced during the year for our story of the seed project we have came to many interesting conclusions.  In our experiment we tested different levels of acidity trough different vinegars to see if the growth of broccoli plant would change.
Through our experiment I have learned that acidity levels doin fact have an effect on the growth of plants.  Giving a broccoli seed vinegar has shown to have a great affect on the plants germination and growth.  All of the plants that we gave vinegar to, in different amounts and types, none of the acidic based plants grew or even germinated.  This made us come to the conclusion that a broccoli plant and likely other plants will only survive and have the best results through very low acidic water.
I found this surprising.  Even when giving the broccoli plant very little of the vinegar types the plant still didn't grow.  I hypothesized that the plant would have grown slower and would have been stunted in it's growth. It was frustrating that only our control plants grew because it made our experiment come to a fast end after seeing that none of our actual test subjected plants were going to grow.  

Genevieve's response:
In Genevieve's experiment her group decided to grow cabbage.  They tested the cabbage with four different liquid types including water, sparkling water, sprite, and vinegar.  their goal in the experiment was to see if the growth and germination of the cabbage seeds would be affected when given different watering sources.  In the end she learned that the sparkling water was the best. source of watering.  The sparkling water given plant was the plant that grew the fastest.  It surprised her that the sparkling water given plant was the faster growing plant and that it worked so well.  They also ended with the conclusion that giving soda to plants and vinegar wasn't sufficient.  Both the soda and vinegar given plants never grew.

In a way I can relate to her experiment because we also gave our plants vinegar, and the vinegar plants died.

Story of the seed blogpost #5

Audrey found the project fun but also things like planting their plants properly confusing. Audrey learned about the cells and how different materials can change a lab experiment. She was surprised that she was planting properly and that it actually grew. What made Audrey laugh was her group mates. What made Audrey pause and think a little deeper is how much salt and sugar to put in each mixture. What she found frustrating was keeping her plant alive.

Blog Post #5: Duaa Khan - Olivia’s Story

As I look through the Story of the Seed Project, I learned several key components to help my plants sustain their life throughout the duration of the semester. Which overall includes, constant care, excessive weeding, and making sure my plants have maximum nutrients. It essentially all started when we began to test broccoli against various amounts and types of diluted vinegar. As the test ran through, we soon figured out that our plants were not able to germinate with any sort of acidic vinegar. More simply, the various types of vinegar were holding back the broccoli from growing to its full potential. We then planted our miniature broccolis in actual fertilized soil and saw a mass amount of difference. First off, the plants were able to grow so much more thoroughly and swifter without the vinegar preventing it from sprouting. Although the soil benefitted the plant quite a bit, another key element was beginning to cause a dilemma which was - Mother Nature. With the seasons taking a toll on the plant’s well-being, this made the seedling struggle greatly as they kept trying to sustain their lives. Something that honestly amazed me was how our plants were able to cope even when being eaten by small insects. To go along with that, we did not always water our plants every single day and without much of an effort, the plants did seem to still rise through. Usually plants aren’t able to survive for a long period of time when these elements come together and ultimately they take out the small seedlings. Something that personally made me laugh was simply how the plants were able to grow. They managed to get themselves together and push through their sufferings in hopes to stay alive in which they did. Even when being exposed to Mother Nature, they still made a broad effort to keep healthy and stay strong as they did. Something that made me think much more further about was the reasoning of the plants staying alive. Although they were neglected quite a bit, the mass amounts of rain helped them to strive along and hold through. Something that was a bit frustrating was mainly how several factors affected the plant and we had to precisely think about each and every one of them. Whether it was nature itself, insects and bugs, or the changing temperature.

While interviewing Olivia, she explained and pointed out her entire perspective of the experiment. Likewise, I learned from her experiences as she told me what was her troubles and contentments were throughout the semester. She also learned to be much more patient and wait for her plants to sprout at their own time. Not only that, but she learned to control her emotions and not get frustrated as her plants weren’t able to grow for awhile. She soon realized not to rush the growth the plants since they do essentially take time to germinate. Something that truly surprised her was how fast her plants were able to grow as she devoted more of her attention towards them. She began to realize that she must dedicate her time and effort to see the anticipated growth of her seedlings. She mentioned how she was “surprised by after a little while, how fast our plants started to grow.” The rapid results mainly came from the time and attention she put out to it. While running the experiment, something that made Olivia laugh was when the plants would grow for a bit then pause then continue to grow again. Olivia had to think deeper about how she was going to take care of her plants and making sure that they are thriving every step of their germination. She had to adjust her amplifying tactics to make sure the plants were growing to their full potential. Olivia got frustrated when her plants would have sort of like an on and off growth which really irritated her. She wasn’t able to figure out what her planted needed in order to survive which made things much more complicated. As I asked Olivia the question, she answered with the statement, “I couldn’t figure out why our plants have stopped growing.” Clearly, the process was difficult at first but through the difficulty, she overcame her obstacles and now her plants are thriving!