Our Final Report:

 

Abstract:

In our project we hoped to solve the question what type of artificial light works best on plant’s growth. To solve this we have created an experiment, to find out more about how we conducted our experiment view our procedure. We took fou different light types, one including the sun, and put two plants for each light source. Our results after 12 days of the plants being exposed to their light sources, we found that some lights produced that some plants that were taller and had more/less decay and vice versa.

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Introduction:

Many people have indoor gardens, for cooking, or just a little inside garden for decoration. If you have inside gardens you may want the best artificial light for their plant’s growth. In this case we used basil plants for our experiment. In our experiment we experimented with 4 different light sources, LED, compact fluorescent lights, incandescent lights, and natural sunlight. A major factor is water, so we gave each plant an equal amount of water to go off of. Another factor is heat, whilst not a major one this still can affect the plants. We found that each light produced around the same amount of heat, and while we lack exact numbers we do know that each one did indeed produce some amount of heat. We also took note that we had to keep the plants surroundings dark aside from there light source, we settled on 3 identical closets for the artificial lighted plants, and the top of a closet for the sun lighted plants. Feel free to browse the rest of our work.

 

Real World Application:

Our project applies to some real world events such a cooking. The faster a plant grows, the quicker one can use it in his/her cooking. Also it is known that some people hold inside gardens and they need to know what light to use that works best for growth.  We could have improved this project by having more of lights on more plants, like a grow lights, halide lights, and halogen light.

 

Question:

What type of artificial light work best on basil plant's growth? Incandescent, compact fluorescent light, or LED?

 

Hypothesis:

We think that the both the Incandescent light, and the compact fluorescent light will be close competitors seeing as how they both produce around the same amount of heat. We think the LED lights will be less productive because they produce less heat therefore causing plant growth to lower in production.

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Materials:

1 Incandescent light bulb
1 Compact Fluorescent Bulb
1 LED
8 Plant Pots (They should be about the size of a mesurring cup that hold 2 cups)
8 Basil plants
Soil (A 25 lbs. Bag will due)
A half a cup of water for each plant a day
3  Closets or dark areas to place each plant (No natural light can come in contact with these places)

Variables:

Independant Variables - The different types of artificial light we will expose the sunflower plants to.

Dependant  Variables- The height of the sunflower plants.

 

Procedure:

1. Go to a local store and buy 8 basil plants, two for each light source.
2. Measure each of the plants to the top leaf for the height.
3. Place the plants that are being used for the incandescent light in a specific closet, do the same for the other plants in their own closet except for the two plants that are going in the sunlight.
4. Wire a different light to each closet that contains two plants.
5.Every morning turn lights on for 12 hours
6. Water each plant every other day with a half a cup of a day (Note when watering allow no light to enter the closet)
7. Monitor the plants for 12 days
8. Every 4 days record each plant's height.