Science project about leaves...desperate need of help?

Question

i have to design an experiment and write a report about this

"does the size of a plant's leaf effect the amount of water it loses?"

please tell me how do i prepare the experiment and what equipment i need

and plz give me some points for the reports

(the report is has to have these things)

-hypothesis

-table of variables

-how could i have made the investigation a fair test

-equipment

-method-

-risk assesment

and yer

plz tell me what i am supposed to be recording and yer

answers appreciated

thank you

Answer 1

You will need:

couple of cut plants (or better yet,  branches of same plant) with measurable foliage (= rather flat leaves). Jars with equal amount of water. Plastic folio or similar to keep water from evaporating from the jar.

I would say it you could have at least five plants/branches to see whether there really is difference.

Put plants in jars, use folio to seal to jars around the stems.

Put plants in similar conditions for a day.

Take plants out , measure the amount of water that is left in the jar. You can calculate the water that was lost by plant evaporation. Now take each corresponding plant and measure area of their foliage: you can do this by picking out leaves and tracing them on millimeter-paper then calculating the squares.

make a diagram of your data.

Hypothesis: well, guess, what will happen...

Table of variables: What have you been measuring.

Investigation of fair test... hmmm. I actually do not know what this means (english is not my native language, not familiar with this term)

What could go wrong: if plants are genetically different (= are not branches from same plant) the possible differences can be due some metabolic difference, not the size of foliage. If the conditions of plants are kept are not similar (for example one is in warmer place than others) this can have an effect on results.  If some of the plants were better hydrated than others. And of course one can just measure wrong.