🫘 Bean seeds and water: the whole packet

🫘 Bean seeds and water · 2nd–6th grade · 10 days of testing · free · 15 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how much water the beans get each day, then how many of the five beans sprout in ten days will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

4 levels × 3 tries at each = 12 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🫘 Dried beans from the grocery bag (pinto, lima or kidney): 60, all the same kind
• 🧻 Paper towels
• 🛍️ Plastic bags: 12 zip bags
• 🥄 Measuring spoons
• 🚰 Water from the tap
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers

Be safe: 👶 Small parts · 🧼 Wash your hands after

1. Fold a paper towel into each of twelve zip bags.
2. Label three bags none, three a little, three medium and three lots.
3. Put five beans in each bag, on top of the towel.
4. Water each bag its own amount, and zip it almost shut.
5. Tape the bags to a wall in a warm room, out of direct sun.
6. Every day, add the same water and count the beans that have sprouted.
7. On day ten, write the final count for each bag in your table.
8. Draw a bar graph of beans sprouted for each amount of water.
9. Wash your hands after handling the beans.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Water each day   I measured: how many of the five beans sprout in ten days (beans sprouted, of 5)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: water each day along the bottom, beans sprouted, of 5 up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: measure the longest root every day, and draw a line for each amount of water.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: how much water do bean seeds need to sprout?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how much water the beans get each day would change how many of the five beans sprout in ten days, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how much water the beans get each day (None, A little (1 teaspoon), Medium (1 tablespoon), Lots (3 tablespoons)) and measured how many of the five beans sprout in ten days in beans sprouted, of 5.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same kind of bean and five beans in every bag the same, so only how much water the beans get each day was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 4 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: None and Lots (3 tablespoons) gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: measure the longest root every day, and draw a line for each amount of water.