Scientist in the Making: My 5th Grade Marigolds

Dear Readers,

Do Marigolds Grow Best In: Potting Soil? Backyard Soil? or Backyard Soil with Sand? Make your guess now and I will reveal the answer later! Alas, this was the title of a 5th grade science project of mine. I remember one of my friends grew mold on bread for this – disgusting, but cool. My title was descriptive but lacked creativity. I think my project titles got better later…The project was comprised of a little white binder, complete with a cover and spine title, filled with three-hole-punched sheets and hand-labeled page numbers.

I even put a picture of a seed packet on the cover, although it said Calendula - I want to point out, Calendulas and Marigolds are actually not the same flowers. Calendulas are often called “Pot Marigolds” for their common name but are not a true Marigold scientifically. Calendulas are part of the Calendula genus and Marigolds are part of the Tagetes genus. You can read more about their differences here.

Here are the sections of the binder: Acknowledgements, Research, Purpose & Hypothesis, Materials, Procedures, Results, Conclusion, and Bibliography. I do not want to ramble on about each section, so I am going to highlight the stuff I liked best.

I did some research on the internet and read some books on Marigolds (not Calendulas…). Unfortunately, I did not do an in-text citation and my teacher pointed this out, haha! I also did a pH test of the three soils I chose as part of my experiment prep, because pH helps give you an idea of the amount of nutrients available in the soil for plants. The pH range is 0 (acidic) – 7 (neutral) – 14 (alkaline). Plants have optimal pH ranges and if the pH is off, it can affect their growth! You can learn more about pH here.

I definitely violated the scientific method right away based on how I worded my hypothesis. “I think that the backyard soil with sand will grow the best because it sprouted first…” My teacher’s comment said “Are you making your hypothesis after you started your experiment? It should be before.” I agree – and knowing me at that age, I am retroactively satisfied that I finished the project and ended up getting real results. Spoiler alert, my hypothesis was wrong anyways (womp-womp).

I took 17 days’ worth of observations which is pretty good, I was consistent, and all three pots of seeds sprouted and grew. I am kind of sad because I wish I had pictures of the plants themselves, but instead, you get one of my first ever Microsoft Excel charts pictured below. Honestly, I think it is pretty good for 5th grade! Fast forward to now being a lecturer and having student interns, there are three things I tell my students to do every time they make a chart: 1) Title it, 2) Label your axes, and 3) Change the default color. I cannot tell you how boring it is to see the typical Matplotlib blue color when students use Python on Every. Single. Plot.

I spoiled this earlier, but my hypothesis was not correct, and the flowers grew the best in the potting soil. It makes sense – potting soil is specifically designed to grow a wide variety of plants. One of my favorite lines I wrote in the discussion was “I just assumed that the plants in the Backyard Soil with sand would do the best because most plants grow outside in the people’s gardens and this Backyard Soil that I used was from my grandma’s garden where flowers blossom quite beautifully.”

I really hyped-up Grandma – she did let me do this project at her house after all.

Sincerely, Dr. Carter

5th Grade Jarai’s Bibliography as written (only one website was still actively sadly)

• Baker, Jerry. Old Time Gardening Wisdom. Jerry Baker, 1999
• Reader’s Digest. 1001 Hints & Tips For Your Garden. Pleasantville, New York/Montreal: Reader’s Digest Associate, 1996
• Better Homes and Gardens. New Garden Book. Des Moines, Iowa: Meredith Corporation, 1990
• “Marigolds.” https://www.floridata.com/ref/T/tage_spp.cfm