This experiment takes advantage of the ease of growth and short life cycle (seed to seed in 35 days) in Fast Plants--an organism suitable for many kinds of home and classroom scientific investigations. Fast Plants are particularly interesting because, like humans, they exhibit considerable variation in many observable characteristics. Fast Plants® are useful for experiments investigating the...

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Download this complete unit of instructions to conduct an ecosystem inquiry. In this investigation, students have the opportunity to witness first-hand the dynamic relationship between Brassica butterflies and Wisconsin Fast Plants. Students are responsible for tending the butterflies and plants throughout the entire life cycles, while they explore and explain the changes that each organism goes...

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This document is a complete science notebook that was designed by teachers working with elementary and middle level students who were learning with Fast Plants. The notebook includes color illustrations by our Fast Plant artist, Amy Kelley. It includes a graphic organizer to support predicting what the answer will be to a question being investigated, pages with prompts for recording observations...

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This document is the step-by-step instructions for planting Fast Plants in a deli-container growing system like is used in Reading Green. The instructions include measurements that are then integrated into mathematics problems that are on the flip side of the planting instructions. The instructions are illustrated by our Fast Plants artist, Amy, to help all learners understand the steps.

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This document is the step-by-step instructions for planting Fast Plants in a quad growing system like is sold by Carolina Biological Supply Company. The instructions are illustrated by our Fast Plants artist, Amy, to help all learners understand the steps.

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Instructions for constructing and planting Fast Plants in the recycled "Bottle Growing System" that was designed by the Wisconsin Fast Plant Program. This is a low-cost growing system ideal for growing plants in the classroom, made from recycled soda or water bottles. These growing system are easy to build, use, and can be cleaned and reused for multiple years.

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This document is the step-by-step instructions for germinating seeds and growing young Fast Plant seedlings on paper toweling in a Petri dish. The Petri dish technique is terrific for making it easy to observe what happens during germination. This growing system can also be used as a 72-hour method for identifying phenotypes to demonstrate Mendelian inheritance patterns in some Fast Plant...

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Download this 17-page booklet with several investigations that can be geared towards middle or high school students. Includes background information to support investigations in three primary areas of plant physiology (how plants function): Nutrition, Tropism, and Hormone Response (using Gibberellic Acid). The nutrition and tropism experiments are particularly relevant for both middle school and...

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These data sets were meticulously collected by Dr. Paul Williams in an investigation in which we were interested in learning about how nutrient limitations effect a variety of easily observable and measureable Fast Plant traits. Observations were made and recorded at different points in the plants' growth and development. We were interested to look for traits that are minimally influenced by...

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Who knew that rocket science could have so much in common with botany and plant pathology? This is a human interest and science story that documents from firsthand accounts and artifacts the historical context and scientific events relevant to an important collaborative Fast Plant investigation on the MIR Space Station. The project coincided with pivotal historical events and involved many...

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