Growing Plants in Liquids (PBL)

We spent the summer learning about the plant life process... with a twist. Our science experiment started with a question. Do plants need soil to grow? From there, my family and I embarked on a great journey. We built our own hydroponic unit.

My children started by sprouting seeds on coffee filters. We were amazed to see that water and hydrogen peroxide were enough to spout seeds. we then incubated those spouts in hydroponic solution while we built the growing unit. To our surprise, the spouts grew very fast.

Our initial question began to expand. Will plants in soil grow faster than those growing in the hydroponic solution?

We absolutely had to answer that question, so we expanded our hydro-unit to include a gutter garden.

During this process, we were able to learn about seasons and which plants grow best at different times of year. We learned about how plants react to high temperatures. We failed and succeeded many times!

We observed how caterpillars destroy plants and were able to study what caterpillars eat and why.

After 40 days, we are now able to harvest lettuce out of both units. It is clear that plants grow faster in the hydro-unit than in soil! We've had a lot of fun with our project.

You should try project-based learning. Your kids' understanding of the subject will deepen beyond anything you could have learned from just reading a book or watching videos.

We incorporated what we learned into their science and ELA curriculum, making cross curriculum teaching easy.

HAPPY LEARNING!