Summer challenge

While we wait for the GCSE results, what better to do than conduct an experiment, just for the fun of it? The project I am suggesting is the JMP Summer DOE Challenge, which runs from 11th July until the start of September and involves nothing more complicated than growing some cress seeds.

Often in school you will be told that experiments should always be fair tests and that means changing only one variable at a time. Although this is a good starting point, there are times when it isn’t the best approach. In particular, if you are trying to rank different factors by their effect on a specific outcome then it could be advantageous to vary several things at once, provided that you do so in an orderly manner.

In the case of the JMP Summer DOE Challenge, you are invited to look at the effect that three different factors have on the height of cress plants grown from the same batch of seeds. The factors given for investigation are;

• initial conditioning (are seeds pre-soaked or not?)
• growing medium (compost or cotton wool?)
• illumination (grown in daylight or in the dark?)

These three pairs of possibilities give eight different combinations of factors and your task is to discover not only which is the best combination but also which factor has the greatest effect on plant growth. An instruction sheet, brief video and results template are all offered to help you collect and analyse your results. Register here by giving yourself a suitable business title, department and organisation name – and note that Jersey isn’t listed as a location so it’s probably best to choose UK. Jersey postcodes are accepted though. The competition is free to enter and the prize is simply the honour of being featured on the JMP Blog.

I reckon there may be other factors hidden inside the list given above but, since I’m planning to have a go at this challenge myself, I’ll leave you to consider what else could be important within the experiment as it has currently been designed. I will say, however, that the challenge’s suggested online seed supplier (amazon.de) doesn’t provide delivery to Jersey and all the cress seeds listed on amazon.co.uk seem to be “currently unavailable” – so it will have to be a trip to one of the local garden centres for me!

FOOTNOTE: It’s worth adding that JMP is the company behind a family of visual data analysis programs and, I guess, the offering of a free 30-day trial is a bit of a hint that it could be a good idea to explore the software while preparing your entry for the competition. The software is for Windows platforms only. Click here for more information.