1 Acid Rain Lab Introduction Plants and animals are an important part of the ecosystem. Humans use plants and animals as a main source of food and shelter, and benefit a lot from having them around. Not having one of these species can throw off the whole ecosystem. That is why it is important for humans to protect plants and animals from dangers in our ecosystem. A possible danger is acid rain. Acid rain is any precipitation that falls to the ground holding any acidic component. Environmental Protection Agency, 2024. Acid rain is harmful to plants and animals because the rain creates acidic components in the soil and water where it falls. Center for Science Education, n.d. This is damaging to plants because the moisture they soak up in the …show more content…
After one week, the seeds saturated in water were split in half and moved into two peat pots. One was labeled experimental, and one was labeled control. Once the plants had grown for a couple of weeks, the acid rain treatment began and the changes in the Raphanus sativus plant were recorded. To start the experiment, twelve pieces of paper towels were cut so that they could fit inside the two petri dishes. Half of the sheets then went into each dish. The paper towels in the tap water Petri dish were fully saturated and 20 Raphanus sativus seeds were placed in the dish on top of the saturated paper towels, and the lid was closed. Similarly, the paper towels in the acid rain dish were saturated in acid water and 20 raphanus sativus seeds were placed in the dish on top of the saturated paper towels, and the lid was closed. After one week, data was collected on the seeds and the acid rain seeds were disposed of while the tap water seeds were kept for the next part of the experiment. Ten plus seeds from the tap water petri dish used earlier in the lab and from the unused seeds in the seed packet were then placed in each of the 2 peat pots and pressed lightly into the potting mixture. Each week the plant's growth was checked and during week 4 the acid rain test began. Peat pot #1 the control …show more content…
This is important to help decipher how damaging acid rain can be to plants and how quickly they can be killed. It was hypothesized that when comparing the effect of acid rain and tap water on radish seed germination that 20% of the seeds exposed to acid rain will germinate because the acid will be too strong that not even half of them will germinate. However, 100% of the seeds exposed to tap water will germinate because the water will be the right moisture for the seeds and they should all sprout. It was also hypothesized that when comparing the effect of acid rain vs tap water on radish plant growth that exposure to acid rain will result in the plant to die. Meaning the leaves will turn brown, and the plant will shrivel up and fall. This is hypothesized because acid rain has acidic components that destroy magnesium and calcium that these plants need to survive. The results in this experiment rejected the hypothesis that 20% of the seeds exposed to acid rain will germinate because the acid will be too strong that not even half of them will germinate. However, the results obtained showed that the seeds that were in acid water 0/20 of them germinated, which is 0%. 20/20 of the seeds did not germinate, which is 100%. This is because the acid is way too strong and does not let any of the seeds germinate.