Experiment: Fresh Flower Food vs. Water
1. Remember that to make the test data worthwhile you must be consistent
throughout the experiment. Setting up the experiment and not looking at
it for a week will not only give you useless data, but also waste your
flowers.
2. Begin by getting 30 high-quality flowers; poor quality flowers will
bring poor results. Be sure the flowers are all the same variety, from
the same store. This will eliminate some of the variables in the experiment
and make the results more realistic.
3. Obtain 6 identical vases or jars. Label 3 water and 3 fresh flower
food. Fill each container with the same amount of water. In the 3 containers
labeled fresh flower food, add the correct amount of fresh flower food
for that amount of water. Flower food can be obtained through your local
florist, or on the consumer section of this web site.
4. Cut off the bottom inch from each stem and randomly place the flowers
into the containers. Each container will have 5 flowers.
5. The jars should all be placed near each other, so all of them are exposed
to similar environmental conditions. Do not place them near a draft or
in direct sunlight.
6. The same person should take data every day. This person will have to
decide when the flowers are dead. This person must be consistent in his / her
decisions.
7. Once a flower is considered dead, record how long the flower lived
in days. For example, if the experiment was set up on Monday and by Friday
the flower was dead, then the flower lasted 4 days. Do not count the set
up day.
8. After all the flowers in the jar have died, add the five day lengths
together and divide by 5. For example 4+5+5+5+6=25/5=5= an average vase
life of 5 days for that one jar. Do this for every jar.
9. Next find the average vase life of the two types of treatments by adding
the three water jars’ averaged days together and divide by 3. For example:
5 days + 6 days + 7 days / 3 = 6 days. Repeat for the 3 fresh flower food
jars. Now you will have the average number of days that the group of 15
flowers lived.
10. The two values can now be compared and a realistic figure on the difference
between the two can be found. This now means that you know how many days
longer on an average, fresh flower treated flowers lasted over those kept
in water.
