Why do cut flowers have a real
sweet tooth when it comes to
sugar?
Catherine Aber
Mr. Kuhne
Lopez Elementary
Statement of the Problem
Cut flowers are gifts that you can
give to someone when you are
congratulating them or just letting
them know you care about them.
But usually cut flowers die
shortly after you receive them.
Is there a cheap way to keep cut
flower stems alive long enough?
Project Overview
This project interested me because I
wanted to find a way to keep cut
flowers alive longer.
Cut flowers usually wither and die
after a very short time.
I gathered information and
performed experiments.
I created a graph and table that
were helpful when coming up with
conclusions.
Background Research
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Plants make sugars in a process called
photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis requires the usage chlorophyll in
green leaves to trap Energy from sunlight.
Carbon dioxide and water are then converted to
sugar using the absorbed energy.
Cut flowers depend on sugars which they break
down to provide energy to live longer.
Background Research (continued)
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Sugar is one of the nutrients cut flowers
need to live longer than usual.
Florists give you little packets that
supply nutrients and other important
assets.
It will be helpful to find a cheap way to
use at home to keep cut flowers longer
at home.
Variables
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Controlled Variable: The variable that I kept the
same during the experiment is the amount of water
that was in the vases because that is not what I am
testing.
Independent variable: The one variable that I
purposely changed was the amount of sugar each
bouquet of flowers had to see which lived the
longest.
Dependent variable: The measure of change
observed because of the independent variable was
that some plants were dying before others. This was
because they each had different amounts of sugar.
Hypothesis
If I put sugar in the
water the cut flowers
live in, then it will
survive longer than
the cut flowers with
just water.
Materials
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Materials needed.
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Where I will get them.
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1,2, and 3 tsp. of Sugar.
2 bouquets of cut flowers.
5 glass vases.
6 cups of water.
Measuring Cups.
Commercial Floral packet.
Small rectangular pieces of
paper.
Tape dispenser.
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Sugar Bowl in kitchen.
Florist or Grocery Store.
Supply Cabinet in Kitchen.
Water faucet in kitchen.
Kitchen Cabinet.
Come with Store flowers.
Reading room printer.
Reading room cupboard.
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Procedure
Step 1. I gathered all my materials and then put the
bouquets of cut flowers into the 4 glass vases.
Step 2. I put 2 cups of water into each of the glass vases.
Step 3. I put 0, 1, 2, and 3 tea spoons of sugar into the
water and so I didn’t forget how much sugar each bouquet
got, I labeled the vases with pieces of paper and stick it on
with tape.
Step 4. I continuously recorded the days that they lived.
Step 5. I made a table and graph of my observations
and conclusion of my hypothesis.
Setup of Experiment
Vase1 Vase2 Vase3 Vase4 Vase5
Beginning
Vase1 Vase2 Vase3 Vase4 Vase5
After
Data/Observations-Table
Day Vase 1(0
tsp of
sugar)
Vase 2 (1
tsp of
sugar)
Vase 3(2
tsp of
sugar)
Vase 4 (3
tsp of
sugar)
Vase 5
Florist
Packet
3
5
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
7
Wilting
Alive
Alive
Alive
Alive
9
Wilting
Wilting
Alive
Alive
Alive
11
Dead
Wilting
Wilting
Wilting
Alive
13
Dead
Dead
Wilting
Dead
Alive
15
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
Alive
17
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
Wilting
20
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
Dead
Data/Observations - Graph
Conclusion
What I learned from my project
-sugar can help make cut flowers live longer
-sugar supplies the nutrients they need to survive.
-my hypothesis was proven because the vases with
sugar lived longer than the vase with water.
-this would benefit our society in that it would be useful
to know how to help keep cut flowers that you get for
gifts healthy longer.
-what I would do differently if given the chance is use
other mineral nutrients with the sugar water and see if
flowers survive longer than the vases with sugar water.
Works Cited
Resources:
Websites: www.ehow.com, www.answers.com
www.wikipedia.com
Books
Bang, Molly & Chisholm, Penny. Living Sunlight: How Plants
bring the Earth to Life. Blue Sky Press , 2009.
Gibbons, Gail. From Seed to Plant. Holiday House, New
York, 1991.
Gray H. Susan. Plants. Cherry Lake Publishing, 2010.
Kalman, Bobbie. How a Plant Grows. Crabtree Publishing
Company, 1997.
Tocci, Salvatore. Experiments with Plants. Children's Press,
2001.
Burnie, David. Plant. Knowpf A. Alfred Inc, 1989
Acknowledgements
There are several people that I would like to
thank who made this experiment possible. First
of all, I would like to thank my mom, because
she put the experiment together by helping me
gather the materials and track the days. Also I
would like to thank my dad, because he bought
the materials and helped me with my
PowerPoint. I would also like to thank my
sisters because they helped me take pictures of
my observations and with my Poster Board.