Plant SMART amps

Students researched their plants and created SMART amps to tell how to take care of them. They will use their projects to keep their plants alive until the end of the year (hopefully!) Click on the SMART amp to view full screen so you can read the information.

Our Plants

The Robotic Rhinos just adopted about thirty-five succulent plants from a store called Fat Plants in San Diego. The plants arrived just before Christmas break in small two inch by two-inch pots. After forming groups of three students each, we chose our plants. Next, we chose planters for our plants from Thingiverse. Mrs. Abernethy kept her home 3D printers working overtime over Christmas break to make all of the planters for the plants. She has a Flashforge Creator Pro and a Flashforge Guider II at home while she keeps her Flashforge Finder here at school.

Last week, we researched the names of our plants (there were no tags included) and transplanted our plants into their new planters. This week, we took pictures of our plants using the iPads. We used a program called Photo Lab to edit the pictures and we uploaded them to Padlet. Our padlets can be seen below. We continue to research our plants' needs and soon you will see a post of our SMART amps showing how to take care of all of the different succulent plants we have.

We hope you enjoy our artistic talents below!

Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches

The Melting Snow Experiment

THE MELTING SNOW EXPERIMENT
(includes the 7 parts of a science fair project)

PART ONE
QUESTION: What kind of salt melts snow faster:

1. Pet Friendly Ice Melt


2. Kosher Salt


3. Morton Table Salt


4. Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt


5. Morton Solar Salt


PART TWO
RESEARCH
Pet Friendly Ice Melt and Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt are the only items actually used by consumers to melt snow. Kosher salt and table salt are for cooking and eating. Solar Salt is for water softening of your drinking water or your pool water. Below are the prices for each type of salt. Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt is the cheapest alternative.
1. Pet Friendly Ice Melt - $9.93 for 20 lbs.
2. Kosher Salt - $2.99 for 3 lbs.
3. Morton Table Salt - $1.48 for 26 oz.
4. Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt - $8.97 for 40 lbs.
5. Morton Solar Salt - $15.61 for 40 lbs.

PART THREE
HYPOTHESIS
I think _______________ will melt the snow the fastest, because ..... Most students chose the Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt as the salt that would melt the snow the fastest. Below is one class's signature chart before we went out to do the experiment.


PART FOUR
MATERIALS
Pet-Friendly Ice Melt, Kosher Salt, Morton Table Salt, Morton Fast Acting Salt, and Morton Solar Salt. Small garden shovels, measuring cups, tablespoons, and SNOW!

PART FIVE
PROCEDURE
1. Measure five equal cups of snow and place them side by side. Be sure they are all the same size, shape, and height.
2. Evenly distribute 3 tablespoons of a different type of salt on each pile of snow.
3. Observe to see which pile of snow melts the fastest.



PART SIX
RESULTS

PART SEVEN
CONCLUSION
The Pet Friendly Ice Melt will melt the snow the fastest in most cases, but the Morton Fast-Acting Ice Melt will melt the snow quickly, too. If I did not have a large area to do and I had pets that would be using that area, I would definitely buy the Pet Friendly Ice Melt. However, if I did not have pets, I would probably buy the Morton Fast Acting Ice Melt. The cost for the Pet Friendly is more than twice that of the Fast Acting and if I had a large area to do and no pets to worry about, I would not want to waste my money for such a small difference in results.

7 Parts of a Science Fair Project