Our hypothesis is: the earth lettuce will sprout quicker than the Mars plants, but we think the Mars plant may come up a little and look unhealthy. We also think that the fertilizer Mars plant will grow better than the rest but the road sand won’t grow at all.

We researched what Mars soil is rich in and we found it was very high in iron, lacks moisture and has other toxic materials which makes it hard for plants to grow. We also looked up what plants grow quickest and the recipe for homemade martian soil to help us with our experiment. We found our research on many websites including Chat GPT, Meta AI, google, and NASA.com.

Our Independent variable is: us testing 4 different soil conditions which were
1) regular earth soil
2) road sand with steel wool
3) Play sand and steel wool
4) Play sand with steel wool and fertilizer
 Which is what we changed on purpose for our experiment

Our dependent variable is: What we measured in the experiment, for example:
- the height/ growth of the plant
- How many days it took to grow
- Overall health check (LOOKS, HOW HEALTHY, AND HOW OFTEN THE PLANT NEEDS WATER ALONG WITH QUANTITY OF WATER WE GIVE)
   Which all DEPENDS on the soil type

Our controlled variables are: What we kept the same which was
-The same seed type
-Same amount of water (usually) 
-same pot size
-same conditions (Sunlight or grow light, humidity, temperature)
- Same amount of soil in each plant
  If we do all these the same, it helps factor the only thing affecting the growth in the plant is the soil type and ingredients

Our planting day procedure was:

1. Creating the regular earth soil- We put soil in two pots, one for each person, followed by digging a little hole in the middle and put the seeds inside. Lastly, we watered the plants to keep them moist until our next watering.
2. Making the regular Mars plant- We put one layer of rocks, one layer of playground sand, one thin layer of steel wool, followed by another layer of playground sand. Next we dug a little hole in the soil and put the seeds in, finally we watered the plant until moist.
3. Mars plant with fertilizer- We put one layer of rocks, one layer of playground sand, one thin layer of steel wool, and a layer of playground sand. Then we made a little hole in the Martian soil and put the seeds AND FERTILIZER followed by watering the plant until moist.
4. Mars plant with road sand- We put one layer of rocks, one layer ROAD SAND, one layer steel wool, and lastly, another layer of road sand. We made a hole after making the sand And put the seeds inside. Finally, we watered the plant until it was wet.

Our procedure for taking care of the plants is:

• Checking on the plants almost every day to daily, ensuring we answer these questions for each plant:

What is the date and time of checking/ watering your plant(s)? What is the growth (in cm) of all your plants? Which plants needed watering? What was the quantity of water you gave the plant(s)? Plant health check (describe physical appearance)?

• Taking photos every other day to daily, to graph the growth of the plants throughout the project
• Staying updated with one another on how our plants are growing

Our observation: Our observation is that the growth in the Earth soil was significantly in better condition and came up the quickest out of all. We also noticed the regular Mars soil (B) grew quite well too as long as I kept the sand moist. With all of the Mars plants I needed to add more water than the Earth one, because the materials that we used for the Martian soil seemed to soak water up more. We also noticed all the Mars plants came up slightly yellow and a few were moldy due to the soil having bad condition for plants to grow in. The plant with fertilizer grew the slowest and died very quickly. We tried watering it and keeping it in plastic wrap, acting like a greenhouse, but it still didn't seem to grow the way we thought it would. In every growth we wrote down, plant (A) was always at least a centimetre higher than all the rest and it has huge, green leaves. Plant (B) and (C) are also thriving well but definitely not as good as the earth plants health and condition.

Our analysis is: The lettuce grown in Earth soil showed the most growth. Out of the Martian soils, the lettuce grown in plain Martian soil grew the most. The plant grown in Martian soil with road sand grew less, and the fertilizer did not help as much as expected. These results show that the type of soil affects plant growth and that growing plants on Mars may require testing different soil conditions.

Conclusion:

Our conclusion is that our Earth plant grew quite a bit more than all the other plants, which we thought in our hypothesis. Our 2 fertilizer plants grew the worst out of all our plants and we thought different than what actually happened. The road sand and regular sand grew well but came up slightly yellow and needed more water than the Earth plant did. Our earth plant sprouted quicker than the rest of the plants which we thought would happen. Overall, we believe that growing plants in Martian soil slightly affects it, but the atmosphere on planet Mars is the most affecting variable of all.

In real life, we can use this information to know if there was more nutrients and less toxins found in Mars soil, then we could maybe grow plants on Mars in a greenhouse without the poisonous atmosphere getting to the plants. We might eventually find a way to grow food, plants and other resources needed to thrive, on Mars. Although, it would need a ton of effort to find the right materials and we would have to evolve to the Mars environment.

The sources of error in our category may be a little bit off due to the fact that it was homemade Martian soil, meaning still with Earth materials. In order to find an exact measurement of life on Mars, you would need to have the materials found on Mars along with the proper atmosphere mining more carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon (Ar), and carbon monoxide. In the soil it would need to be rich is silicon dioxide, and ferric oxide with a ton of minerals like perchlorate and other poisonous materials that plants probably couldn't thrive well in.

We found all of our information off of, Chat GPT, Meta AI, google AI mode, Nasa.com, and wikipedia to sort our knowledge needed to build, and find the proper conditions for a good Mars soil recipe.

Thank you to, our principal and CEO for signing us up and helping us understand the methods needed for the project. Thank you to our teachers for giving us support and knowledge to continue the project well. Thank you to our parents for helping us buy, research, and taking out time each day to help us understand the science behind our Mars VS. Earth project!