In this first lab exercise, you will be given a tour of the ECSU greenhouses. You will learn about how this facility provides the light, temperature, water, minerals, soil, humidity, and space for growing plants. You will learn about its efficiency and design compromises. You might want to take some field notes. This is an appropriate first exercise as it provides an overview of environmental factors that influence the normal function of plants. Plant physiology is the study of normal plant function. Through the semester you will examine the roles of these factors in plant function.
I will then show you how to prepare friable soil. Such soil is moist enough to form a ball when squeezed together; it is dry enough for the ball to crumble at a touch. You will learn how to fill a pot firmly with soil and put it "on line" with the watering system.
For future exercises, you will plant a pot of five bean seeds, a pot of five sunflower seeds, a pot of five cucumber or squash seeds, a pot with a cutting of scented geranium. You will label each pot with masking tape and put your pots "on line" with the watering system. Please be sure the emitter is in the "on" position before you leave today!
In your exercises this semester you will use an attitude of inquiry, some seeds of technique, and do some real science. In most exercises you will decide what to examine, how to examine it, what the results mean, and when your examination is finished. You will decide which questions to inquire about, pose the hypotheses, make the predictions, design the experiments, analyze the results, and make the decisions. Your project is completed when you have communicated the findings and conclusions to the instructor and/or the class.
In most weeks you will be presented with one or more basic exercises that represent a "model system". You will (usually with a partner) decide what to investigate, what variables need to be manipulated, how you will alter the parameters to test the model, how to design proper controls, and how to actually carry out your experiments. One week after all the data are collected, you will submit an amplified abstract or, in one case, make an oral presentation. In another case you will write a complete laboratory report due on the last day of class.
As any real scientist, you will decide which exercise and which parts of which exercise are included in each kind of presentation. Your performance and choices will determine the grades your presentations will earn. How well you demonstrate your developing prowess as a scientist and how well you communicate your improved understanding of plant physiology will determine the grades you receive on each assignment and the course as a whole.
I think plant physiology is fun...I hope you will like it too!
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