Botany is a field of science that has to do with plants. This is a great topic for students to work with when developing their science fair projects. This is because plants are a life form that can be manipulated without the ethical concerns that are associated with animal experimentation. They are also a lot easier to manipulate and experiment with, especially when working on reproductive or biochemistry experiments.
Cross Pollination Science Fair Projects
The first botany themed science fair project that you can work on is a cross pollination science fair project. This project will manipulate the reproductive process of two different plants. Your goal is to create a new color of flower.
HYPOTHESIS: If you cross pollinate a white carnation with a red carnation you will get a pink carnation.
EXPERIMENT: To test this hypothesis you will need to mature carnation plants that are in bloom. You will need one red carnation and one white carnation. To cross pollinate the flowers you will use a cotton swab to collect pollen from the red carnation and use it to pollinate the white carnation. You will then do the same thing with the white carnation, you will pollinate its flowers with the pollen from the red carnation.
DATA: The data that you collect will be the color of flowers that are produced as a result of your cross pollination. You will need to document how many white flowers are produced, how many red flowers are produced and how many pink flowers are produced. If white, red or pink flowers are not produced then describe what the flowers look like. You will also want to explain if there is a difference between the flowers created by pollinating a white carnation with a red carnation and by pollination a red carnation with a white carnation.
Creating a New Plant Variety Science Fair Projects
In this experiment you will be testing the reproductive barriers between plant species. Your goal will be to create a new plant variety by cross pollinating two different types of plants, such as beans with corn or peanuts with potatoes.
HYPOTHESIS: Cross pollination is possible between two different species of plants.
EXPERIMETN: To test this hypothesis you will need to first select two plants to experiment with that produce a fruit or a vegetable. These types of plants will be easier to determine if pollination was successful or not successful. You will need to be careful that your test plants do not pollinate themselves. To ensure that the only pollination that takes place is because of your actions you will need to remove the flowers that you do not cross pollinate and you will want to remove the pollen from the test plant so that the only pollen present is the one that has been introduced.
DATA: The data that you collect will be information about the plants that you selected to cross pollinate, the artificial pollination steps that you take and the results of the pollination. If fruit or vegetables are produced you will want to describe the shape, coloration, patterns, texture, smell and taste of the fruit or vegetable.
