Science Fair Step 6

How Long Can A Plant Live Without Sunlight That is my big question

I think the plant will die in a month A. I thought that because plants need sunlight to live without it the plant would die in a short period of time.

Facts The sun one of the resources that every living thing needs to survive without it anything living will die in short periods of time.   From a NASA 2003 press release"… the Sun contains 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system… The total energy radiated by the Sun averages 383 billion trillion kilowatts, the equivalent of the energy generated by 100 billion tons of TNT exploding each and every second" Source: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Astro_p020.shtml Sunlight - the green pigments in plant leaves, in a process called photosynthesis, to make sugars on which the pant then lives, use this. All animal life on the surface of Earth eats plants to survive and therefore all life on earth (apart form some specialist examples) live on sunlight. Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_plants_get_from_the_sun Plants absorb sunlight through the chloroplasts in their leaves. Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_do_plants_get_sunlight Plants need sunlight, because without it they would not be able to complete the process of photosynthesis Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_plants_need_sunlight Deep-sea plants that live on the ocean floor have no sunlight, but plenty of water. They get their energy from minerals and nutrients in the water instead of from sunlight Source; http://library.thinkquest.org/3608/plantsgrow.html Plants need sunlight (or the right kind and amount of electric light) in order to make chlorophyll. Source: http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/sunlight.html#vocab

Experiment A. To do my project you need: Two plants, a place without sunlight, and a notepad for observations . B. To do this project you take the two plants and take the first one[the control plant] and put it in a spot with sunlight. Take the second plant[the variable plant] and put it in a cupboard. During the project take observations until the plant dies. C. The control plant was the plant we treated normal in the sunlight. The variable plant is the plant we put in the cupboard with no sunlight.

Observations 1. After one week the leaves were limp but healthy. 2. After two weeks and a half the leaves were brittle but still healthy . 3. After three weeks the leaves were brittle and falling off. 4. After one month and two weeks the plant was dead with brittle falling off leaves.

Data Plant With Sun Plant Without Sun Did very well Very limp and died very brittle colors not vivid and leaves shriveled

Analysis of Data Yes it did because after two weeks the plant without any sunlight died.

Conclusion My conclusion is that my hypothesis was wrong and the plant died in a month and two weeks instead of a month.

References http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_plants_get_from_the_sun Sources: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Astro_p020.shtml    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_plants_get_from_the_sun http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_do_plants_get_sunlight   http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_plants_need_sunlight http://library.thinkquest.org/3608/plantsgrow.html http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/sunlight.html#vocab