Life Inside of a Bottle

Introduction:
The nitrogen cycle starts with atmospheric nitrogen, the atmospheric nitrogen goes
through a process called nitrogen fixation, since it cannot be used directly be plants and
animals. The atmospheric nitrogen enters the plant through root nodules, here rhizobium
bacterium can be found and converted into ammonia. The ammonia then goes through
nitrifying bacteria and then it is converted into nitrites and immediately after that, nitrates. In
some cases nitrogen fixation occurs with lightning strikes, it is immediately converted into
nitrogenous compounds (nitrates.) The nitrates are then absorbed by the roots in the plants and
turn it into proteins. Animals eat the proteins and excrete it. Dead plants and excrements are then
decayed and turned into ammonia, thus starting the nitrogen cycle all over again (Smart Learning
for All, 2015).
Leguminous plants use up atmospheric nitrogen, which consists of up to seventy nine
percent of the nitrogen cycle (Lamb, Fernandez, and Kaiser, 2014.) The atmospheric nitrogen
goes under a process called nitrogen fixation, in this case biological nitrogen fixation; and it goes
through the same process as the one that is listed in the above paragraph. Nitrification happens
best in moist and warm soils, and some legumes work better than others.
Experimental Design
Problem Question: How do legumes effect growth rate of plants?
Hypothesis: If we add a legume to a plants soil, then it will increase the growth rate because the
legume increases the nitrogen in the soil.
IV: Types of plants and soil.

DV: Growth rate of plants.

CG: Plant without legume.
EG: Plant with legume.
Materials and Method
We will use four two liter bottles to form two closed systems. One closed system will have
regular top soil and a corn seed, the second closed system will have regular top soil, a corn seed,
and a legume. We will use a pipe cleaner to provide the soil in both of the closed systems with
water.

Graph:

AP Bio Conclusion: In conclusion, we are unable to determine whether legumes effect

the growth rate of plants because we had inaccurate data on one of our days. Even

with the inaccurate data collection, we determined that the growth rate of the
control group is 4.6 cm/day and the experimental group had a growth rate of 3.4
cm/day. Although, our calculated results show that corn in top soil grows faster
when compared to the corn with legume in top soil. In order to make our data more
precise and accurate we would need to do more test of the same experiment and
compare results to someone that with the same experiment as well. Overall, our
experiment had some errors, which makes us not trustworthy, but we can safely say
that no others outside properties affected the closed system we created with the
bottles.