Rob and I are very good friends. Some aspects we worked well together, and others not so well.
We worked really well together building the window farm. We found that we both had fun and enjoyed working together. We take turns watering the plants and can easily communicate if we have any problems with the window farm.
Some problems we have include not communicating over the holidays or making a plan to water our plants. I often end up doing most of the work on our blog. For example, I had to do all of his assigned tasks for our Blog 3 assignment making my Sunday evening very unpleasant. Also, Rob has not done any of his reflections where I have and because of this, we will lose vital marks. I really think he could try a bit harder.
Sunday 13 April 2014
Max's Reflection
Window Farm Design
I really like our window farm design. Our bigger bottles provide more space for our plants to grow in. With smaller bottles, the plants are more crammed sometimes even damaging the plants. We did not make any additional modifications to our window farm as everything is working just fine.
Our Plants
Our 3 plants are Basil, Coriander and Mint. I think that the basil and mint were good plants to grow but the coriander was not. The coriander was too fragile when put into the widow farm. This caused the stems to break eventually leaving the plant to die. The mint and basil are more tough. So not everything grew in our window farm. We found some tiny insects in our soil but they did not affect our plant growth. We found no bacteria or fungi surrounding our plants which was relieving. The only thing that did affect our plant growth was water and sunlight.
Influences
One of our influences was not watering the plants enough! This obviously killed the plants. I felt a bit sad seeing some of our plants completely dead after the holidays. The other one is watering our plants manually. I think that if you use a water pump, you spend just as much time watering your plants manually. Plus, you are using electricity!
Information that would have been helpful at the start
Amount of water for each plant-we found that basil needs more water than the coriander and mint. Our basil was lacking water but when we added a more adequate amount, there was a major change in growth before the holidays.
Light-the side that we put our window farm has buildings, which sometimes blocks the sun. The buildings mostly block the light in the morning and late afternoon. At around mid-day, the plants receive the most light. Light is highly important for plant growth. Putting the window farm on the other side of the classroom could have resulted better growth in plants.
I really like our window farm design. Our bigger bottles provide more space for our plants to grow in. With smaller bottles, the plants are more crammed sometimes even damaging the plants. We did not make any additional modifications to our window farm as everything is working just fine.
Our Plants
Our 3 plants are Basil, Coriander and Mint. I think that the basil and mint were good plants to grow but the coriander was not. The coriander was too fragile when put into the widow farm. This caused the stems to break eventually leaving the plant to die. The mint and basil are more tough. So not everything grew in our window farm. We found some tiny insects in our soil but they did not affect our plant growth. We found no bacteria or fungi surrounding our plants which was relieving. The only thing that did affect our plant growth was water and sunlight.
Influences
One of our influences was not watering the plants enough! This obviously killed the plants. I felt a bit sad seeing some of our plants completely dead after the holidays. The other one is watering our plants manually. I think that if you use a water pump, you spend just as much time watering your plants manually. Plus, you are using electricity!
Information that would have been helpful at the start
Amount of water for each plant-we found that basil needs more water than the coriander and mint. Our basil was lacking water but when we added a more adequate amount, there was a major change in growth before the holidays.
Light-the side that we put our window farm has buildings, which sometimes blocks the sun. The buildings mostly block the light in the morning and late afternoon. At around mid-day, the plants receive the most light. Light is highly important for plant growth. Putting the window farm on the other side of the classroom could have resulted better growth in plants.
Abiotic Factors
Abiotic factors that effected us:
Our first abiotic factor that effected us was water.
We made a mistake by not leaving a note out over the holidays to remind our teacher to water our plants, which meant our plants where left thirsty for three weeks.
The effect of this was that we lost two plants and had to replace one.
One basil and one coriander died.
Our final abiotic factor was sunlight.
Obviously we can not control the weather, so some days it would be sunny and others not. The weather during most of the holidays was mainly overcast because of all the rainy fronts we experienced. This affected the amount of sunlight our plants got.
Our arrangements
I managed to water the plants the day we broke up. During the holidays, both Rob and I were not able to come to school and water our plants as we were both away. But, we could have still left a message for our teacher, saying to please water our plants. Unfortunately because of this, some of our plants died. We definitely could have been more organized.
Watering system
Our watering system did not work as we did not make any plans. I had only watered the plants just before the holidays. This was not enough to keep the plants alive.
Our first abiotic factor that effected us was water.
We made a mistake by not leaving a note out over the holidays to remind our teacher to water our plants, which meant our plants where left thirsty for three weeks.
The effect of this was that we lost two plants and had to replace one.
One basil and one coriander died.
Our final abiotic factor was sunlight.
Obviously we can not control the weather, so some days it would be sunny and others not. The weather during most of the holidays was mainly overcast because of all the rainy fronts we experienced. This affected the amount of sunlight our plants got.
Our arrangements
I managed to water the plants the day we broke up. During the holidays, both Rob and I were not able to come to school and water our plants as we were both away. But, we could have still left a message for our teacher, saying to please water our plants. Unfortunately because of this, some of our plants died. We definitely could have been more organized.
Watering system
Our watering system did not work as we did not make any plans. I had only watered the plants just before the holidays. This was not enough to keep the plants alive.
Abiotic Factors that influenced our plant growth
We chose 3 abiotic factors that influence our plants growth:
1. Water- Water is essential for photosynthesis. Our plants need the right amount of water to grow properly. Under conditions of water scarcity, plant growth is severely impaired. On the other hand, too much water will cause waterlogging leaving the plant to die.
2. Oxygen- Oxygen is necessary for cellular respiration in the plants. Food materials are broken down in the process of respiration and energy is released in the form of ATP molecules. This is the valid form of energy for the living cells.
3.Light-Adequate light is perhaps one of the most important factors influencing plant growth and it is the quantity, quality and duration of light exposure is what matters. Various light sources can be used to provide light to the plants and the sources of light can be classified as natural and artificial sources. The natural source of light is the sun whereas the artificial sources include various types of lighting equipment. Blue light is essential for the growth of the leaves whereas a combination of red and blue light promotes flowering of plants.
1. Water- Water is essential for photosynthesis. Our plants need the right amount of water to grow properly. Under conditions of water scarcity, plant growth is severely impaired. On the other hand, too much water will cause waterlogging leaving the plant to die.
2. Oxygen- Oxygen is necessary for cellular respiration in the plants. Food materials are broken down in the process of respiration and energy is released in the form of ATP molecules. This is the valid form of energy for the living cells.
3.Light-Adequate light is perhaps one of the most important factors influencing plant growth and it is the quantity, quality and duration of light exposure is what matters. Various light sources can be used to provide light to the plants and the sources of light can be classified as natural and artificial sources. The natural source of light is the sun whereas the artificial sources include various types of lighting equipment. Blue light is essential for the growth of the leaves whereas a combination of red and blue light promotes flowering of plants.
Biotic Factors: Plant Growth
Our Basil,
from when we first planted it, got bigger just before the holidays about 4
weeks ago. During the holidays, due to lack of water, one of them died. We are
planning to replace both this week coming up.
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| Our basil on the 11th of April |
 | |||||||||
| Our basil 4 weeks ago
Our
coriander was our first plant to die. It died about 4 weeks ago. This was not
due to lack of water but merely because of broken stems. When we first placed
it into our window farm, the plant was so fragile that most of the stems just
broke. We thought if we watered it and left it to grow in the sun it would get
better, but nothing worked and it soon died. We replaced it with some basil on
the 11th of April.
Our mint
seems to be doing just fine and is the best out of our 4 plants. Some plants
have died but more new ones are beginning to grow. The leafs have grown towards
the sun causing it to wrap around our window farm a bit.
Our mint 4 weeks ago.
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