To: Journey North
From: Fyle Elementary's Tulip Research Team
Rush-Henrietta Central School District
Rochester, New York
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What We Learned From Our Tulip Research:
The Fyle Tulip Research Team planted a garden in the Fall of 1996 in conjunction with 150 classrooms around the North America. Fourth and fifth Grade students from Fyle elementary school in Henrietta, New York worked with their teachers Mrs. Chislett, Mrs. Nabut and Mrs. Petri to investigate whether their is a relationship between tulip growth and amount of precipitation. Click survey to see.
We received 20 returns on our survey. These are the states we heard from:
British Columbia
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
New York
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Texas
Here are the observations of our students on what they learned from the study:
In general, as the amount of precipitation increased so did tulip height, with the exception of a few places.
The places with very little precipitation had little success with their blooms.
The more North and East the place, the more precipitation and the taller the tulip stem.
Here are the student comments on what they learned from the experience:
We learned about weather.
We learned about the meaning of precipitation.
We had some trouble with the data because we weren't specific enough in terms of asking for inches or centimeters. Because of this we learned to convert centimeters into inches.
We had trouble with some of the data we were sent because some people gave us responses in terms of inches of snow fall; rather than what the actual amount of fallen moisture that meteorologists keep track of. This taught us that meteorologists measure precipitation differently than some people do. Snow melts into water and the amount of water is most often fewer in inches than the fluffy snow.
Our study might have been better if we had "controlled" for planting time. In other words, to make our study more fair or accurate, we could have asked people what their blooms looked like after a certain number of weeks.
We learned how to collect data on our own region's precipitation from newspaper clippings. We also got some of the answers we needed by faxing a meteorologist and calling another.
We graphed monthly precipitation as pattern and saw what average looks like. Now we know how to graph average and two variables in a scattergram.
Teachers' Learning and Response
This project was very valuable because it gave our students an opportunity to engage in authentic research with a real audience of Journey North participants. We appreciated having access to a community of learners through Journey North's list serv and Web site.
To analyze the study, we had the students organize the data into a spread sheet and then as a group construct a scatter gram. We plotted coordinates using tulip heights and precipitation totals. The kids observed to see if a "line" or "cigar shape" was present as evidence of a correlation between the two variables. Although, some points in the data were not in any pattern, we could point to a small section in the graph that seemed to indicate that yes, there was a relationship between the two variables (precipitation and tulip height).
As teachers, we observed a pattern of tulip growth as well as a pattern where the outliners in our data were located similar to that identified on planting packages for preferred planting zones. If we were doing this again, this would be a productive area of discussion of the outset and during the study.
Next year, we would like to have our students initiate the same study. We will spend more time teaching certain concepts and skills directly (like precipitation, correlation and scatter grams) in the form of readiness activities for the final analysis of this year long study. We hope to involve even more classrooms around the continent!
Mrs. Chislett Mrs. Nabut, Mrs. Petri & Students
Fyle Elementary
Rochester, New York
Lchislett@mail.rh.monroe.edu
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