Science fair crisis! Help desperately needed!

My daughter did a science fair project in which she had three sets of two plants, started from seedlings. Two plants she read to, two she played music to and the final received no special attention. She rotated them, measured their waterings, had them under a grow light and did everything she could to keep their situations identical but for the variable.

She wrote her conclusions before plotting her data. It seemed obvious that there would be no relationship, right? Wrong, the plants that had the music grew notably faster. Why? How can this be? What possible theory could account for the difference?

Scientists help! She is up against a deadline!

Thank You, she did work hard so saving her is a worthy cause.

P.S. Yes, she has learned not to write her conclusions before reviewing her data

Anything beyond that, she could not in good scientific method comment on, except as another hypothesis that would need more testing.

the music could have changed the growth, as you said a hypothesis in need of further testing.

I feel really bad for her. Half of me wants to tell her to switch the plants, but that would make me a Republican. Someone should raise the honest kids, right? I'm proud to say that the thought hasn't even occurred to her.

herself, and not ask other people for opinions.

As I see it - were it my child, or my student, I would NOT want them asking other people why they think the music helped plants grow. I'd want the child to do all the thinking him/herself. That's the point of the lesson.

and if I remember correctly, their results were the same.

Here's the results ripped from a webpage:

Talking to plants
Build team testing how talking to plants (positive/negative) affects growth of plants. Also testing different types of music.

Seven greenhouses on Jamie's roof

silence
heavy metal
classical
2 sweet talk
2 abused
27 days: sweet-talking plants doing a bit better than the verbally abused plants.

2 months: all the plants are dying. Battery for timer feeding the water system died.

To recover the experiment, decided to wash plants and weigh plant mass.

Metal house the best performer by far, with classical in second. Talking nice/nasty made no difference. Kari's nice house did better, but Scottie's was the opposite. Silent house was the worst performer.

Plausible (not confirmed, given that the experiment wasn't really scientifically valid)

She just read the answers here and likes the vibration idea, but if anyone had authority or a scientific sounding explanation it would help quite a bit.

That the vibrations of the music (or whatever -- maybe lights from the stereo) helped to stimulate growth. Of course, she wouldn't have to test this second theory unless she advances to the next fair level.

in a totally separate area from those that did not? Maybe, from the scientific point of view, there was spillover? Also, what kind of plants are these and where did she get the seeds?

part of the house.

try this link, I liked the reasoning

www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/867276587.Bt.r.html

she was careful to treat them uniformly. Also, when they "listened" to the music she wasn't in the same room.

And got the same results. So she's not alone... maybe google for "music helps plants grow" and see what you find for hypotheses there? Sorry, I don't actually know why, I just know it works! Doesn't seem to matter what kind of music, though...

That can have a significant impact on how experiments turn out. What kinds of plants were they? Some species exhibit large variations in their genes (enough to influence germination and growth patterns, even if they're siblings). With only 6 plants, it's not out of the question that two hearty growers just happened to end up in the "music" treatment group. (Has your daughter's class done probabilities yet? She could do a calculation on it -- 1/3 times 1/3, etc.)

Also, there's always the literature review. Have any other people noticed the same patterns? (This is how I rescued my PhD research.) Send a note to my inbox if you'd like me to look for some published papers.

And then there are unforseen impacts -- I recall an experiment done in Canada to see whether electromagnetic radiation affected tree growth. The trees in the area with the radiation emitters did significantly better than the control group, but it turned out later that the soil was poor in nutrients like zinc and copper, and the metal rods holding the equipment in place were apparently enough to "fertilize" the trees!

She started the experiment when there weren't many seeds available.

Fantastic ideas! I'm going to have her take a look at your post and decide about your offer for further help.

Thanks so much.

The music plants probably experienced a higher amount of vibration than the other samples. This may have caused shifting in the dirt bringing more nutrients to the roots.

Its conjecture. But its possible.

Thanks.