Alena Aponte

Ms. Keene-Krops
9/25/14
Research Plan

Problem Question or Topic:
How do oil spills affect the growth of aquatic plants?

Purpose and Rationale:
To see the impact oil spills have on aquatic plants and on wildlife in general.

Goals and Expected Outcomes:
The plant with just water and no oil will stay alive and grow more. The plant with a medium
amount of oil will barely grow and it will die. The plant with the least amount of oil will grow a
little more than the plant with the medium amount of oil but will still be in bad shape. The
plant with the most oil will not grow and will die the soonest.

Hypothesis (es):
If this experiment is conducted correctly then the plant with the most oil will grow the least
because the oil will harm the plant.


Research Methods and Questions:
I am conducting my research by background info and using trusted websites to get
information. The questions that are leading my research are what is in oil that may be
beneficial or harmful to plants? What have been the worst effects of oil spills in the past?

Experimental Design:
Independent Variable The amount of oil each plant receives.
Dependent Variable The growth of the plants.
Control (Group) same amount of water, soil, and same size plant.
Constants The plant with no oil.

Materials:
Gloves
Goggles
4 buckets
40 gallons of water
17.5 cups of oil
20 plants
Pencil
Notebook( to record observations for each bucket for each trial)

Procedures:
1. Put on gloves and goggles
2. Get 4 buckets
3. Fill buckets up with 3 cups of soil each
4. Fill the rest of the bucket up with 2 gallons of water

Alena Aponte
Ms. Keene-Krops
9/25/14
5. Place one plant into each bucket. (For this entire project you will need a total of 20
plants which is five trials of four.)
6. Add oil into buckets depending on how much you need to make the experiment
successful. Bucket one will need no oil, bucket 2 will get a cup of oil, bucket 3 will get 1 cup
of oil, and finally bucket 4 will get 2 cups of oil.
7. Leave those plants out for 3 hours recording the changes of growth, and color also be
sure to record any other odd changes every 30 minutes to 45 minutes with a notebook and
pencil.
8. Once you are done with the experiment compare your results from the first trial all
the way o the fifth trial.

Expected Trials and/or Sample Size: I expect for there to be five trials of four plants.
That makes the total number of plants that I will need 20.

Risk Assessment and Safety Precautions: My project does not have a lot of safety
precautions but it still does have one and that is: The oil that I am using has chemicals in it just
like any oil so if it gets into my eyes, mouth or anywhere, where it can get inside my body It
can have a very negative effect so I need to be careful when pouring the oil into the buckets
and use goggles and gloves.

Data Analysis and Units:
The procedures that I will use to analyze the data I will gather is making a graph or
chart of my data to see and patterns or anything odd about it. It will also help me come
up with explanations to why the results that I got were what I got. The units I will use is
cups so that I can measure the amount of oil the plants get and the amount of soil, I will
also use gallons to measure the amount of water each plant gets.
Qualitative- color of the plants, height of the plant.
Quantitative- Growth of plants, amount of soil, water, oil.

Bibliography:


Special Projects Information (Optional):