 your results
Sent in by:
Kerri of Smithville, TX
Build a maze for your a-maze-ing spud!
- small pot filled with damp potting soil
- shoebox
- blocks and spools for your maze
- sprouting potato (To sprout a potato, leave it out at room temperature. It might take as long as six weeks for it to sprout, depending on where your potato is and the temperature in the room.)
- Plant the potato in the pot filled with damp potting soil with most of the sprouts facing up.
- Make a small, round, quarter-sized hole in the short side of the shoebox.
- Put the potato plant in the shoebox opposite the hole.
- Now put the blocks and spools in front of the potato to make an obstacle course.
- Then put the box on a sunny windowsill with the hole facing the light.
- Check your box after three or four days to observe the growth. After a while, you'll see that the sprouts find their way to the light by going around the blocks and the spools. Because the plant needs light to produce food, it will always grow towards the light.
Once you've built a potato plant maze, try experimenting with other plants. Think of a question that you'd like answered. Like, "Do all plants grow the same way? How about a dried lima bean?" (Don't try this with the kind of lima beans that come frozen or in a can.) Make a prediction and then test it. Write down your results and send them to the ZOOMsci feedback section.
You can also send us your pictures or video of this ZOOMsci:
ZOOMsci
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Cassandra, age 13 of Barnum, MN wrote:
The potato had already started to sprout when I started and it reached the end of the maze in 4 weeks. I think that this idea is awesome.
Alexandra of Lawrencville, GA wrote:
After 7 weeks and 10 days, my potato found its way out of the maze, it was amazing!!!
Katie, age 13 of Cincinnati, OH wrote:
My brother did it for a science fair project and it grew to the light so well he got second place.
Nino, age 12 of Jersey City, NJ wrote:
It grew long stems that where about 1 foot and a half. The stems went through holes in wooden blocks, curled around the pencils, broke some stacks of wooden blocks, and went through the hole in the box to get light. Know I have a potato plant in my room.
Danielle, age 12 of Stockholm, NJ wrote:
I did it three weeks ago, its awsome. And I made the maze really hard for the potato and it found its way to the light. You would be surprized how smart living things are beside us.
Joe, age 5 of N.S. wrote:
It grew strait through the little hole and throgh the maze!!.
Jeyda & Natalie of Arcata, CA wrote:
My friend Jeyda and I (natalie) think the potato will reach the light in about five weeks. We will write back when we get the results.
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