ABSTRACT

The Illinois Junior Academy of Science

This form/paper may not be taken without IJAS authorization.

CATEGORY Botany STATE REGION # 6

SCHOOL Niles North High School IJAS SCHOOL # 6038
CITY/ZIP Skokie, IL 60077 SCHOOL PHONE # 847.626.2258
SPONSOR RJ Thielsen

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

MARK ONE: DESIGN INVESTIGATION

NAME OF SCIENTIST* Ajmal Ahmed GRADE 12

NAME OF SCIENTIST GRADE
NAME OF SCIENTIST GRADE
NAME OF SCIENTIST GRADE

* If this project is awarded a monetary prize, the check will be written in this scientist's name, and it will be his/her responsibility to distribute the
prize money equally among all participating scientists.

PROJECT TITLE The Effect of Different Acid Treatments on Stomata Sealing

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to observe the most efficient way to grow plants on Mars that is most suitable for its
environment and available resources.

Procedure: Corn plants and pothos golden plants will be sprayed with different concentrations of stearic acid and dihydroquinoline
solutions which will act as antitranspirants. The effects will be observed through how the plant is able to support itself with given
treatments in comparison to the control (receiving only distilled water)

Conclusion:
The results from my experiment conclude that the plants given distilled water are healthy, strong, and have the highest mass loss. The plants that had
acid solutions applied to it remained just as healthy however conserved most fluid loss in comparison to the control. The known to be durable
household plant, pothos golden, remained healthy and resisted damages. If these plants were to be grown on Mars they would thrive while conserving
fluid loss. However, the acid solutions had many safety risks, this would make the plants too dangerous to consume. But the process of spraying a
solution to seal rather than keeping the plant in a sucrose solution for example could be something that is expanded on.

To further my research in the future, I would like to discover new methods to manipulate and alter plant functions. This would serve the purpose of
researching ways to grow plants to their full potential in environments that do not provide the most compatible resources.

My hypothesis disagreed with the results received. The acid solutions did seal the stomata however they did not damage the plants too harshly. The
reason may be that since the solutions were sprayed directly onto the leaves it did not damage the plant unlink the sucrose solutions that the plants
were placed in the previous year.