Idea Saved!

I asked Ms. Zhang last week (I am lazy and don't keep my blog updated that often - but I'll try!!), she said that we don't have to do something that no one has ever done before. So, I can have my experiment on colour spectrum and plant growth underway.

But setting it up can be a little bit of trouble - I would need an enclosed dark space, little cubicles for the plants (so different lights don't cross over each other and affect validity), many little plants, many little pots for the little plants, many light bulbs of different colours, racks or something to hold up the light bulbs, lots of wires and a lot of effort to water and observe the plants everyday. Since I'm leaning towards the lazy side of human nature (as mentioned above), so I might not end up doing this after all...

My dad gave me another idea though. He said if I can investigate whether glass (like the type found one your car windows) can block out UV radiation and whether glass thickness would affect the blockage. He got this idea because he always complained about sunburns while driving. This seems easier to test, the only thing hard to comeby might be some sort of meter that measures UV rays. Um... perhaps this can be easier?

The third idea now available is investigating the pattern of the relationship between the vibration frequence of metal ruler and the length used to vibrate. Is that easy to understand? Like when you hold one end of the ruler on the table and press down the other end and the ruler vibrates? I have a device that measures pitch in my instrument, so equipment would be of little problem - this is one of the main reasons I'm considering this. (Mr. Marussich actually gave me the idea - he did the ruler thing in class to explain about the stiffness of material. But he also said, "we will do this sometime"; which suggests to me that a lot of people had done this. But I really want something fresh and fun...)

I'll leave it at this now, I'll think about it more. It's actually pretty frustrating - I much prefer reading a book and learn that way. But I guess field work is ultimately more important.