Crystal Garden

Guiding Question: How do crystals grow?

Hypothesis: I think that we can grow crystals anywhere, on any objects, different shapes and sizes from the solutions that the teacher is going to give us.

Materials: sand, pie plate, tin foil, cup, string, clay, wood, Styrofoam ball, pipe cleaner, tooth picks and Brillo pad.

Day 1

Today we added the salt and sugar solution to our Cristal gardens and added food coloring to the solution. After I pored the solutions over my Cristal garden, it looked so colorful. My garden is on Mars, there is a space station and a satellite on the top of it, there is three rivers going into 1 little pool. There is a lot of plants and there is a marshen.






Day 2
The salt and the sugar crystals grew a little bit but not so much. I added a little more sugar and salt solutions to the places the didn't have any crystals!












Day 3

Today in science class we continued doing our crystal gardens. I put some more solutions on my garden but other than that , my crystal garden was finished, but now I am just waiting for the crystals to grow. I was doing my dale diary. I rely loved doing this project and being able to work and have fun at the same time! I hope all of my class mates liked this project as much as i did!!!




Data analysis:
The place where the crystals grew the most is on the ground (sand). I notice that the salt solution was growing the most crystals on and under the sand. The place where the crystals grew the worst was on the string, in the cave because there wasn't a continuous flow of solution!
The solution that was the easiest to grow from was the Salt crystals because they seamed to grow everywhere.
The solution that grew crystals the slowest or most difficult was the borax which was placed on the ropes inside the cave.
The best method for me was pouring the solution all over the place and seeing where it is going to grow the most.

Conclusion:
The condition that is kneaded to grow crystals is in a calm warm area so that the crystal solution can evaporate faster and you can grow crystals faster!
What can you conclude about the conditions that are needed for crystals to grow? Give examples from evidence you have seen from either your garden or classmate's gardens. What have you learned about crystals during this project? Do you have a new hypothesis? Answer the guiding question.

Further Inquiry: What errors may have occurred in your garden? How would you change the experiment if you were to do it all over again? What further questions do you have about crystals and the conditions they need for growth?