Is this a good hypothesis? Just asked this question bu i have changed it a bit.?

Question

An alfalfa sprout will not be able to survive with a certain amount of salt

i have to find how much salt an alfalfa sprout can live with before dying.

I have to put like lots of salt and and bring it down until it stops dying.

I am watering them with sallted water.

I just cant think of what to say at the end of it

Answer 1

Not to be overly critical....but....

When you do an experiment, you ...

1.  Use a 'control' group.  This means that you should have more than 1 alfalfa sprout.  The 'control' should get normal water, not salted water.  This is so you can tell the exact effects of the salted water.  Let's say that ALL the plants die, including the control.  In this case, you would know that it wasn't the salt that killed them.

2.  You should have a couple of other plants as well, and use salt at different concentrations on each plant.  This is because you are saying that they will not survive 'a certain amount of salt'.  Since you don't know what the amount is, you should use at least 3 other plants and use different amounts of salt on each one.

3.  You shouldn't 'bring down' the level of salt.  If your intent is to see how much salt will kill the plant, then you should keep the salt level constant, and see how fast the plant dies.

So, your report might start like this:

Question: How much salt can alfalfa plants tolerate before dying?

Hypothesis:  I think that an alfalfa plant will live 5 days with a concentrated salt mixture, and 2 weeks with a diluted salt mixture.

Experiment: (Here you would describe EXACTLY what experiment you set up, for example...)  Using 4 alfalfa plants, I gave each one a different type of water.  Plant #1 was my control.  It got regular water.  Plant #2 got diluted saltwater, 1 teaspoon per quart.  Plant #3 got a more concentrated solution, with 10 teaspoons per quart.  Plant #4 got the super concentrated mixture, with 20 teaspoons per quart, making it as salty as seawater.

Observation:  After 3 days, Plant #4 was wilted.  It was laying on the dirt, beginning to turn brown.  Etc.....

(Or, you could make a chart, tracking the condition of each plant on a daily basis.)

Conclusion:  (This is where you write about what this experiment showed, and if it agreed with your hypothesis).

Good luck!

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/folicacid/exci...

Answer 2

It is usually better to state your hypothesis as an if-then statement.  "If one thing is related to another thing, then something will happen."

If alfalfa sprout health is related to exposure to salt, then watering alfalfa sprouts with salt water will result in a decrease in the health of the plants.

How to write a good hypothesis:

http://www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/fi...

After you get your results you can cite a threshold level for survival/death of the plants etc.  Your hypothesis does not and should not state how much salt you think it should take to have an effect... just whether addition of the salt will have a positive, negative, or neutral effect.

You will also need to have an operational definition of "health" to be able to measure and record your results.