Germination
Germination is when a seed takes in water, swells, and sprouts into a new plant.
A dry bean dropped into a bowl of water slowly soaks up the liquid and swells. The bean grows heavy and its outer coat splits open. A small root pushes out from the crack and reaches down toward the bottom of the bowl. That root is the first sign of a new plant starting to grow.
Explaining germination by grade level
Put a bean seed on a wet paper towel and watch what happens. The seed soaks up water and gets bigger. After a few days, a tiny root pokes out. Then a small green shoot grows up toward the light.
Projects that explore germination
A seed must take in water to swell and sprout, and microwave radiation may interfere with that process. Here, radish seeds are divided into six groups and each group is exposed to a different microwave time in seconds. Over six days, you count how many seeds sprout and measure the length of each sprout to see whether exposure time changes the outcome.
When a seed takes in water, swells, and sprouts into a new plant, soil temperature plays a big role in how fast that happens. Warmer soil speeds up germination noticeably — seeds in heated pots at 32 degrees Celsius sprouted a full day before those kept at cooler temperatures. This experiment tests three temperature groups to measure exactly how much that difference matters.
Moisture is what a seed needs to swell and sprout, but there is more than one way to keep seeds wet. This experiment compares two methods: soaking seeds in wide-mouth glass canning jars, or spreading soaked seeds between wet cotton washcloths laid flat in a bowl. Mung beans, pinto beans, and radish seeds each get tested under both conditions.
A seed takes in water to swell and sprout — but the chemistry of that water matters. Five groups of 100 carrot seeds are set up in paper towel rolls, each watered with a different concentration of nitric acid. After 14 days, the pattern is clear: the group with no acid has the highest germination rate, the group with the most acid has the lowest, and more acid means fewer sprouts overall.
A seed needs water to swell and sprout. You place dry seeds on a damp paper towel. Roots and tiny shoots appear in a few days.