10 Plant Experiments

for Kids
Little ones looking to get their hands dirty will love this series of fun plant
experiments for kids that teach essential plant biology concepts such as
photosynthesis, transpiration, capillary action, and tropisms in fun and
hands-on ways. Little green thumbs get to do everything from literally cloning
cabbage (which is actually quite easy to do, and very cool) to building their
own working greenhouses. Check it out!
Table of Contents
Regrow Cabbage: Vegetative Reproduction and Cloning Plants
The Loss of Water from Plants through Transpiration
Sink or Swim: Calculating Density of Fruits and Vegetables
Greenhouse Project
Leaf Pigments
Feeding Plants
Dehydrating Carrots
Best Fertilizer: The Effects of Fertilizer on Plant Growth
Plant Phototropism Experiment
Backyard Biosphere
Regrow Cabbage: Vegetative Reproduction and Cloning Plants
Did you finish the last leaf of cabbage? Don’t rush to the grocery store just yet—in
this experiment, discover how you can eat the same plant over and over again.

Problem: How can you clone a plant?

Materials

Two paper towels

Two plastic bags
Scissors
Napa cabbage
Cutting board
Kitchen knife
Permanent marker
Spray bottle
Water
Camera

Procedure

1. Take the two bags, and label them “leaf” and “stem”.
2. Fold each paper towel three times and slip it into a bag. Use your spray bottle to spray the towel until it is
damp.
3. Now you’re ready to start cloning! Remove the leaves from the cabbage and set one aside. Have an adult cut
the stem crossways, close to the bottom where the roots were.
4. You now have a leaf and a piece of cabbage stem. If you give these cabbage pieces some water, will they
grow? What will happen?
5. Take a photo of each piece before you start the experiment.
6. Slip the leaf into the middle of the paper towel in the “leaf” bag, and slip the stem into the middle of the paper
towel in the “stem” bag. Make sure the bags have a bit of air in them, and close them.
7. Leave the bags in a place with light at room temperature.
8. Open the bags the next day and look at the color and texture of the pieces of plant. Are any roots growing?
Take a photo of the plants, and put them back into the bags. Make sure that the paper towel is still a little bit
damp.
9. Peek into the bags every day for a week, and make sure that you take a photo each time. What happens to
the pieces over the course of the week? What do they look like at the end?

Results

The piece of cabbage stem will start to grow small roots. The piece of leaf will begin to rot.

Why?

While cloning might sound like something that needs to happen in a lab, people who grow fruits and
vegetables have been cloning plants for many years.

Plants have different ways of making new plants. The one you’re probably most familiar with is the seed. Plants make
seeds or spores so that they can reproduce, or make more of themselves.

Making a seed involves sexual reproduction. Plants have male and female parts. The male parts are called
stamens, and they create pollen on the anthers, the ends of the stamens. The female part is called a pistil, and it
contains ovules, similar to the eggs that animals have. When pollen from a male flower moves on the wind or on an
insect over to the ovules, then the plant gets fertilized and can make seeds. When the pollen from one plant meets the
ova from another plant, the DNA from the two different plants combines to make seeds that will reflect the
characteristics of both parents. The DNA gives instructions that tell the plants what color to be and how tall to grow,
as well as other information.

Asexual or vegetative reproduction is another way that plants make new plants. In this case, a plant makes a
new plant by itself. It doesn’t need any other plants to help it do this. Strawberry plants are good examples of this. A
strawberry plant will send out many little strings, or runners. At the end of the runner, a baby strawberry plant will
grow. It’s the same as the mother plant, but it’s also a new plant.

People often help plants with vegetative reproduction. When people want to grow new apple trees, they usually take
a little bit of the apple tree, cut it, and place it on a new stem. This is called grafting. That way, they can grow the
same apples on a new tree. Because they come from the same tree, these apples share the same DNA. They are the
same apple grown on a different stem.

When you grew the cabbage, the cells near the root area of the cabbage are able to start growing again and make
a new cabbage plant that is the same as the old one. It is a clone. Some plant cells grow new plants more easily
than others. Experiment with different parts of plants. What parts grow most easily? Add rooting hormone to help the
plants make roots. Can you make a leaf grow roots? A stem?

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The Loss of Water from Plants through Transpiration
Do plants sweat? Not quite, but they do lose water. Track down the
missing mass in this experiment by learning how plants lose water to the
air through transpiration.

Problem

How much water can a plant lose through transpiration?

Materials

Three small, thin-leafed plants

Three small, broad-leafed plants
Small watering can
Scale
6 plastic bags large enough to fit completely around each plant pot
Masking tape

Procedure

1. Get six small plants, three with wide leaves and three with narrow leaves. Use the masking tape
and pen to give each one a number.
2. Water the plants until water comes out of the bottom of the pot. If the plants are really dry when
you start, water them thoroughly and wait a few minutes. Then, water them again. When the water
has soaked in and the pot is full of water like a squishy sponge, it’s time to weigh the plants.
Create a table that shows how much each plant weighs before and after the experiment.

Plant Name Weight Before Weight After

#1 (Thin Leaf)

3. Create a hypothesis by addressing these questions:

If you water plants and then put them in the sun, what will happen to the water?
Would anything change if you put a plastic bag around the base of the plant?
How would adding the bag change your experiment?
 4. Put the plants in full, warm sunlight for an hour, then take off the plastic and weigh each plant
again. Record the weight in the table. Is the weight different? The same? Why do you think that this
is the case? Did different plants lose different amounts of weight, or did they lose around the same
amount? Why?
5. Dry off the inside of each plastic bag. Re-seal the bags over the plants, return the plants to the
sunny spot, and continue timing and weighing for several hours without adding any more water.
What happens?

Results

The plants will lose water, even though they are in the bags. The broad-leafed plants will lose a little
more than the thin-leafed plants, but depending on the size of the plant, it may not be measurable.

Why?

So how did the water sneak out of the plants?

When it’s a hot day, you might get a little sweaty. Plants “sweat” as well. Similar to how we lose water
through our skin, plants lose water through their leaves.

Although you might not be able to see them, plants have small pores, or holes, on their leaves. Take a
look at the bottom of a leaf under a microscope, and you will be able to see these holes, which are
known as stomata. This is where plants can lose water through transpiration.

Even though it’s an invisible process, the loss of water from plants through transpiration is an important
part of the water cycle because it adds a lot of water to our air. In just one year, every leaf on earth can
send out much more than its own weight in water. In fact, a large oak tree can contribute 40,000 gallons
of water a year to the air!

You probably water the plants in your house so that they’ll stay healthy—so if plants need water, then
why do they lose it? Transpiration happens in part because plants need to breathe. Plants need to take
in carbon dioxide, and to do this, they need to open their stomata. When this happens, water comes out.
You’ve probably experienced this when you breathe as well: on a cold day, you can even see the water
from your breath as it makes clouds in the air.

Transpiration also helps plants by cooling them down, much like how sweating helps us regulate our
body temperatures. Transpiration also plays a big role in helping water move around the plant by
changing the water pressure in plant cells. This helps minerals and nutrients move up the plant from the
roots.

Going Further

What would happen to a plant if you were to put petroleum jelly on the leaves? How about olive oil? Try
placing different substances on the leaves and weighing the plant, then do the experiment again. What
would happen in a warmer room? Would there be more or less transpiration?

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Sink or Swim: Calculating Density of Fruits and Vegetables
Have you ever gone bobbing for apples? Why is it that some fruits and
vegetables float, while others sink to the bottom? In this experiment, you’ll
be experimenting with different types of fruits and vegetables to see
whether they float or sink.

Problem:

Are some fruits and vegetables denser than others?

Materials

Selection of fruits and vegetables

Kitchen scale
Jar large enough to submerge the fruits and vegetables
Large pan
Pencil
Measuring cup that measures volume in milliliters
Calculator
Towel

Procedure

1. Grab some fruits and vegetables from your kitchen or the grocery store. You can test as many as
you’d like.
2. After you’ve collected your produce, create a hypothesis, your best guess as to what’s going to
happen. For each vegetable and fruit, guess whether it will float or sink.
3. Begin by placing the jar into the pan. Fill it up with water. Make sure that no water goes into the
pan.
4. Now, weigh your first fruit or vegetable. Note its weight in grams.
5. Carefully lower your fruit or vegetable into the jar. Does it float or sink? Make a note of the results.
6. If the fruit or vegetable sinks, remove the jar from the pan and pour the water into a measuring
cup. Measure the amount of water in milliliters. This is the volume – the amount of space that food
took up.
7. If the fruit or vegetable floats, push it down with the tip of a pencil until water spills out and over into
the pan. Measure the water in milliliters.
8. Now it's time to calculate the density of your produce. For each piece of food, divide the fruit or
vegetable’s weight in grams by its volume in milliliters. In a table, make a note of the weight,
 volume, and density of each fruit or vegetable. Your table might look like this:

Name Floats/Sinks Weight (grams) Volume Density

9. Repeat this process for each fruit or vegetable. Which ones float? Which ones sink? Is this related
to the density? How?

Results

Different fruits and vegetables will also float or sink depending on their density. In general, apples,
bananas, lemons, oranges, pears, and zucchinis will float, while avocadoes, potatoes, and mangoes will
sink. Others like turnips and sweet potatoes sometimes sink and sometimes float.

Why?

Whether a fruit or vegetable sinks or floats has a lot to do with its density. What is density? It’s how
heavy an object is compared to its volume. Imagine lifting a pillowcase full of feathers. Now imagine
lifting a pillowcase full of apples. Which one would be heavier? They are both the same size, but since
apples are denser than feathers, the one with the feathers in it would be heavier.

In this experiment, you were trying to find out what vegetables and fruits are the lightweights of the plant
world. Fruits and vegetables are dense for different reasons. Some are like pumpkins, with thick skins.
Others are like avocadoes, with a big pit. Others have more air inside them. The shape or age of a fruit
can also impact whether it sinks or floats.

Why do objects float?

Each fruit or vegetable has a volume. The volume is the length multiplied by the width multiplied by the
height. Water has volume too. When you put an object into water, it pushes the water aside. The water
tries to go back down into the hole.

Who will make it to the bottom, and which one will float on top? Water and apples don’t arm wrestle to
decide. Instead, it’s based on the properties of matter. Whatever is less dense will float. Since apples are
usually less dense than water, they will float on top of the water. If you place an avocado into the water,
it is denser than water, so it will sink. The water is less dense, so it will “float” on top of the avocado. If
your container is completely full when you put the avocado in, the water will spill over the top.

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Greenhouse Project
The greenhouse effect is the trapping of heat in the atmosphere. Without
the gases in the air, heat from the sun would bounce back into space. Too
much gas in the air causes too much heat to be absorbed into the
atmosphere, therefore disrupting the earth’s equilibrium (balanced state).

Problem:

How do gases and pollution affect the earth's atmospheric pressure?

Materials:

Bendy straws
Plastic wrap
Tape
2 Thermometers
Watch, clock, or timer

Procedure:

1. Grab the bendy straws. Put them together like this diagram:
2. Make 4 sides that look like the diagram above. Notice the bottom gray straw is straight. If the
bendy straw sticks out, cut the excess length.
3. Tape the straws together in all the red areas.
4. The finished model should be a cube with no roof or bottom. Making those parts would be a waste
of material.
5. Wrap the plastic wrap around the cube so that it forms a complete cube and there are no
openings. (You may build multiple cubes to test how a thicker wrapping of plastic affects the
 openings. (You may build multiple cubes to test how a thicker wrapping of plastic affects the
temperature.)
6. Draw or print out a chart. Here is an example:​

7. Go outside and place the cube on the ground. Make sure it is in direct sunlight.
8. Look at your thermometers. Record the starting temperatures in the 0 minute boxes.
9. Make a small slit through the roof of the cube and tape the thermometer inside the cube. Make
sure it does not touch the ground.
10. Use your watch, clock or timer to write down the temperature inside and outside the cube every 1
minute.
11. After 5 minutes, move your cube and the thermometers into the shade.
12. Record the temperatures in the shade every 1 minute.
13. After 5 minutes, you should have completed your chart.
14. Go inside and look over the data.
15. Write down what differences you saw in the cube and outside the cube.
How did the temperatures differ?
Did the speed of the increase or decrease of temperatures differ?
Which cube was hotter in the sun?
Which cube was colder in the shade?

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Leaf Pigments
Plant leaves contain pigments that are used in photosynthesis and other
cellular processes. Chlorophyll is the pigment primarily responsible for
photosynthesis. It absorbs energy from sunlight and helps converts it into
chemical energy during the light dependent reactions of photosynthesis.
Other pigments are also present in leaves, called carotenoids. Carotenoids
range in color from red to orange to yellow. They assist with
photosynthesis and help protect structures in the leaf. During the growing
season, the presence of chlorophyll can hide carotenoids. When
chlorophyll breaks down and is not replaced during autumn, the carotenoid
pigments become visible as the bright fall leaf colors. In this lab, the student
will use green leaves of various tree species to compare the presence of
chlorophyll and carotenoids based on species type. Paper
chromatography is used to separate the pigments for identification.

Problem:

Student compares leaf pigments of various tree species.

Materials:

Tree field guide or dichotomous key

Digital camera (optional)
Coffee filters or chromatography filter paper
Isopropyl alcohol
Clear tape
Coins
Pencils
Small transparent glasses or beakers

Procedure:

1. Collect green leaves from 3-5 different tree species. Identify the species using a field guide or
dichotomous key. Create your hypothesis. Which tree species do you think will have the most
pigments and why? Record the leaf color of each species in your data table (light green, yellow
green, dark green, blue green, etc). You may also take pictures of the leaves.
2. If you are using coffee filters, cut them into 1 inch wide (2.5 cm) strips. The length of the strip should
be equal to the height of the glasses or beakers you are using for the chromatography. Label the
top of each strip of filter paper with one leaf species. Use a ruler to measure and draw a light
pencil line 1 inch (2.5 cm) above the bottom of each filter paper strip. For the first leaf species, wrap
a coin around the leaf with the waxy top side of the leaf facing outward. Rub the leaf along the
pencil line on the filter paper until you make a dark green line of pigment. Repeat with the remaining
leaf species and filter paper strips.
3. Set up enough small glasses or beakers for each leaf species you are testing. Pour isopropyl
alcohol into each glass until it reaches a shallow depth of about 1 cm. For each completed filter
paper strip, tape the top of the paper perpendicularly to a pencil. The pencil will be placed on top of
the glass so that the filter paper will hang down into the glass. Put the filter paper into the glass,
carefully so that the bottom of the paper strip touches the isopropyl alcohol. Do not submerge the
paper past the green line of pigment. The pigment should remain above the alcohol so that it will
not be dissolved into the solution itself. Instead, the alcohol should travel up the paper through
capillary action, dissolving the pigment onto the paper and causing it to travel upwards. Repeat
 with each paper strip for each tree species.
4. Observe the papers as the alcohol travels up them. This may take 10-30 minutes. Do not touch
the paper or disturb the glasses during this time. As soon as the alcohol reaches the top of the
paper, remove the paper from the glass and let it dry. As the papers dry, observe and identify the
bands of pigment. The pigments should be in the following order, from top to bottom: carotenes
(orange), xanthophylls (yellow), chlorophyll a (yellow-green), chlorophyll b (blue-green), and
anthocyanin (red). Record the species and pigments found in a data table. You may also want to
take pictures of the chromatography papers or save them for your records and to display.
Compare your results to your hypothesis and draw conclusions about the leaf species pigments.

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Feeding Plants
Problem:

Can plants live and grow when “watered” with juice, soda or milk instead of
water?

Materials:

Twelve small, easy to grow plants in pots (bean plants work well).
Really only four plants are necessary, but it’s good to have the
extras in case one or two don’t make it for reasons outside of the
experiment.
Sharpie for labeling pots
A sunny place to keep plants
Water
Juice
Soda
Milk
Paper and pencil for recording results

Procedure:

1. Begin with 12 small, healthy plants. Divide them into four groups.
2. Label three pots each: water, juice, soda, milk.
3. “Water” the plants daily or as necessary for your climate with one of the four liquids accordingly.
Make sure to give every plant the same quantity of liquid.
4. Check on the plants daily and record your findings in a chart labeled with the date along the left
and each of the four liquids along the top. Some possible observations: What color are the plants?
How tall are they? Are they getting new leaves? How do they feel (brittle, fleshy)?
5. Continue the experiment for as long as is necessary/appropriate.

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Dehydrating Carrots
Water is important for all living things. All living things contain water. Water
is stored in cells.Like the human body, the carrot’s cells are filled with water.

Water can be removed from living things through a process called

dehydration. In this science fair project, we will be dehydrating carrots to
determine how much water they contain.

Problem:

How much water is in a carrot?

Materials:

Kitchen scale
Carrot
Knife
Cutting board
Wax paper
Lamp

Procedure:

1. Gather the necessary materials.

2. Wash the carrot and cut off the stem. Allow the carrot to dry completely.
3. Weigh the carrot and record its weight.
4. Weigh a small piece of wax paper and record its weight.
5. Have an adult cut the carrot into 1/8-inch slices. Lay the slices on wax paper. Place the slices of
carrot under a lamp.
6. After two days, weigh the carrot on the wax paper. Subtract the weight of the wax paper. Record
the information.
7. After five days (another three days after the first two days), weigh the carrot on the wax paper
again. Subtract the weight of the wax paper. Record the weight.

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Best Fertilizer: The Effects of Fertilizer on Plant Growth
What’s cooking in the plant kitchen? Give your plants some food to see
which type they like best and observe the effects of fertilizer on plant
growth.

Problem: Do plants grow best with liquid, solid, or powdered

fertilizer?
Materials

12 bean seeds
4 small pots
Potting soil
3 organic fertilizer sticks
Face mask
Hammer
Old pan
Old tea towel
1 tablespoon water
Permanent marker
Cup
Ruler
Spray mister

Procedure

1. First, place potting soil in four small pots. Make sure that you have the same amount of soil in
each pot.
2. Place three bean seeds into each pot. Make sure that the soil in each pot is damp.
3. Label the first pot “control”. This pot does not get any fertilizer.
4. To create the fertilizer for the other three pots, put on your face mask and place a small stick of
indoor plant fertilizer in an old pan.
5. Place an old tea towel on top.
6. Pound the stick with your hammer until it is a powder. Put the powder aside.
7. Do the same thing with another stick of fertilizer. Put the powder into a small cup and mix this
fertilizer with a tablespoon of water.
8. Label the other three pots “liquid,” “solid,” and “powdered”. Place the liquid fertilizer in the first pot,
place a solid stick of fertilizer into the second pot, and place the powdered fertilizer on top of the
soil in the third pot.
9. Now, watch your beans grow! After 4 days, carefully remove the seeds from the pots without
losing track of which seeds came from which pots.
10. Use a ruler to measure the length of each seed’s sprout. What pot produced the seeds with the
longest sprouts?
11. If you wish, replace the seeds and continue your observation for several more days.

Results

Liquid fertilizer is the best fertilizer: the plants that receive the liquid fertilizer grow the best.

Why?
Just like people, plants need nutrients to grow. In a typical fertilizer, you’ll find lots of nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium. These primary nutrients help plants grow new cells, and many enable
different growth and food production processes to happen. If you choose a good quality fertilizer, it will
also contain many other nutrients, including secondary nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.
Calcium helps plants grow roots and stand up straight. Magnesium helps plants make chlorophyll, which
helps plants make food through photosynthesis. Sulfur is an important part of different proteins and
plants enzymes. Plants also need very tiny amounts of trace elements like boron, copper, iron,
chloride, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc as well.

The liquid fertilizer has tiny pieces of fertilizer held in suspension in the water. Placing the fertilizer into a
liquid base helps that fertilizer move through the soil to the bean seed. It also helps the plant move
nutrients around.

Think about it this way: the water in our bodies helps us move nutrients around, and same goes for
plants. Plants need water to move nutrients from the soil into the plant. Osmosis is a process in which
nutrients move from areas of low concentration to areas of high concentration. This process allows
nutrients to move from the soil into the center of a plant’s roots where there are more nutrients.

Once the water and nutrients are inside the xylem tissue of the plant, the xylem acts as a tube that
sends the water and nutrients up into the stem. The water molecules connect to each other through a
process called adhesion, and as molecules cling together, they move up through the plant. The water
becomes a long, cohesive column, and as water moves out of the plant’s leaves when the plant
transpires, a new batch of nutrient-carrying water moves upwards.

Water and nutrients go hand in hand. Allowing nutrients to move through the soil in suspension helps
those nutrients move more easily, and it also helps the plant use those nutrients to grow.

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Plant Phototropism Experiment
As plants grow, they move up toward the light. But what is a plant’s favorite
color? Do plants move toward some colors more than others?

Problem: Do plants bend toward certain colors of light?

Materials

2 1-foot tall cardboard boxes with lids

Piece of cardboard
Ruler
2 small lamps
2 full spectrum light bulbs
Box cutter knife
Masking tape
1 3” x 3” piece of clear, red, green, and blue cellophane
Water
Spray bottle
Camera
8 bean seeds
8 small pots

Procedure

1. First, get your plants growing. Plant two of your bean seeds in two different pots, water them, and wait for them
to poke out of the ground.
2. While you’re waiting, get your boxes ready. Cut a hole 2” in diameter about 3 inches from the bottom of each
box. Place the clear cellophane over the hole. This will let all of the light into the box. Over the hole in the
other box, place the red cellophane. This will only let red light into the box.
3. Put one plant in the first box and one in the second. Use a ruler to position each bean plant two inches away
from the cellophane window. Take a photo of the plants, looking downward from the top of the box.
4. Put the boxes on different sides of the same room.
5. Now it’s time to light things up! Put the lamps next to the boxes on the side with the cellophane
window. Take out your ruler again and measure to make sure that the lamps are the same
distance from the hole.
6. Put the lids on each box.
7. Every morning, turn on each lamp. Every night, turn off the lamps before you go to bed. Leave the plants to
grow for a week.
8. After a week has passed, remove the lid and take a photo looking downward. Then remove the plants and
take a photo from the front. Do the plants look different? Is one taller than the other? Is one twisted in a different
direction?
9. Do the same experiment with new bean plants, but change the color of cellophane to blue. Finally, repeat the
experiment with green cellophane.
10. Compare the photos of each bean plant after it had been growing for a week. Did the plants turn more toward
a certain color? Was there a color they didn’t like?

Results

The control plants will do better than the plants that are only exposed to one wavelength of light. The
plants will grow better in red and blue light than in green light. The plants will grow toward red and blue
light but will not move toward the green light.
Why?

Plants love the light, right? Yes and no. Plants do love the light, but they like some wavelengths of light
more than others.

When you look at a rainbow, you can see that the visible spectrum of light actually has different colors or
wavelengths inside it. The visible spectrum is the light that we can see. Different objects reflect different
types of light. A blue bowl reflects blue light. A green plant reflects green light.

Inside a plant are chloroplasts. Inside the chloroplasts are tiny molecules called photopigments.
Photopigments help the plant absorb light. A plant has different types of photopigments so it can absorb
different colors of light.

When natural light shines on a plant, that plant takes in the light from the different wavelengths and uses
it to make food. This natural light is called white light, and it contains all of the types of light. If there’s only
one color of light shining on a plant, then only some of the photopigments work, and the plant doesn’t
grow as well. This is why your plant under the full light spectrum grew better than the plants with the
cellophane filters.

Plants also move toward the light. Seeds push little leaves up from the ground into the light. A house
plant in a dark room will grow toward the light. This movement in response to light is called
phototropism. When a plant moves toward the light, it’s called positive tropism. When a plant moves
away from light, it’s called negative tropism.

How do plants move? They do so with the help of chemicals called auxins. Think of auxins as an elastic
band for cells. They help cells get longer and move. Sunlight reduces auxin, so the areas of the plant that
are exposed to sunlight will have less auxin. The areas on the dark side of the plant will have more auxin.
That means that they will have long, stretchy cells. This allows the plant to move toward the light.

The plants in your experiment likely showed positive tropism, except when it came to the green light. Why
did the plants not move toward the green light? Plants are green, which means that they reflect green
light. It bounces off the leaves. This means that they can’t use green light very well, and the green light
bounces off the plant instead of encouraging movement toward the light.

Digging Deeper

What would happen if you left plants for a long time in light that was only red or blue? Would they survive?

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Backyard Biosphere
Human beings have long looked into the cosmos and dreamed of founding
new societies on the surfaces of other planets. The problem with this is
that our biology is so specifically suited to life here on Earth that even slight
deviations from this planet’s conditions can make human survival
impossible. Terraforming is one option that many scientists suggest when
considering the possibility of future human colonization. Terraforming is the
act of taking a planet or a part of a planet (sealed off inside a dome) and
making it like Earth. A planet that is like Earth would, in theory, be capable
of sustaining life that is from Earth.

Creating a biosphere is one way that one can test the plausibility of
creating a sustainable environment that is closed off from the rest of a
planet. Under the protection of a biosphere, plants, single celled organisms,
fungi, bacteria and animals exist in the correct proportions so that the
systems within the sphere mimic the systems protected by the Earth’s atmosphere.

Problem:

Is it possible to create a biosphere?

Materials:

A clear container at least 2’ x 2’ x 2’ with an air-tight lid

Soil
Grass
A flowering plant such as a pansy or marigold
A ceramic bowl
Water
A microscope
Slides
optional) sterile swabs
(optional) petri dishes

Procedure:

1. In this experiment, you will focus on creating an ecosystem that can survive without any animals in
it. Animals require a great deal more resources than plants, fungi, bacteria and protozoa.
2. Clean out a large clear container with an air-tight lid.
3. Dig up a section of grass and soil about 3 inches deep and cover the bottom of the container with
the grass.
4. Level the soil and grass so that one side of the container is 2 inches higher than the other.
5. Plant a small flower on the higher side of the container. A pansy or marigold plant would make a
good choice.
6. Dig a small hole on the other side of the container.
7. Sink a deep bowl into the hole. Ceramic is a good material to use.
8. Fill the bowl with pond water.
9. Completely water the grass and the flower until the dirt is very wet.
10. Take an eyedropper worth of water from the bowl.
11. Take a tablespoon full of soil from the container.
 12. Place the air-tight cover on the container.
13. Set the container in a place where it will be in the sun most of the time.
14. Examine the pond water under a microscope.
15. Examine the soil under the microscope.
16. Make drawings of the microscopic life forms you find in the samples.
17. Allow your experiment to sit for 2 weeks.
18. Uncover the container and quickly collect samples of soil and pond water.
19. Assess the health of the plants in the container. (Do they appear to be doing well or do they
appear to be doing poorly?)
20. Examine the pond water under a microscope.
21. Examine the soil under the microscope.
22. Make drawings of the microscopic life forms you find in the samples.
23. Compare what you find in the samples with what you started with initially. Is life flourishing? Are
there fewer life forms than there were before?
24. Allow your experiment to sit for 2 more weeks.
25. Repeat steps 18-23.
26. Allow your experiment to sit for 2 more weeks.
27. Repeat steps 18-23.
28. Return your samples to the outdoors.
29. (optional) Collect swab samples from the container as during your water and soil collections.
Allow the samples to grow in a petri dish to find out how the bacterial and fungal life are faring in
your experiment. Swab from the side of the container, from under a plant leaf and from the soil for
a good mix of samples.

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