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Planet Nearer!

Jennifer Bonczar, Kendra Sykes, Rachel Mabe

Lab Report from Planet Nearer

We observed five categories of plants: Category M, Category G, Category S, Category P and Category T.

There were three types of Category M. One type, we observed closer to the ground, was green and leafy and the other two types were observed on a Category T specimen called T3. One of the two types observed on T3 was flat and minty green while the other was stringy and darker green. Both of these types were found along the length of T3. All all these types were less than one centimeter tall.

The next category is Category G. Of this category we observed two types. One type, G1, had taller and thinner strand, some of which were brown, and the tallest strand measured 14.3 cm and a strand measured 1mm across. The other type of this category, G2, was green and was both thicker and shorter. One strand measured 9.5 cm tall and 4mm across. When observed from the hand lens, both of these types looked very similar, consisting of vertical veins and a glossy texture.

Category S is a new discovery! There were 8 varieties of Category S and they grew amongst Category G. This plant life differed in leaf shape, texture, vein shape and some were glossy. They measured between 1 and 4 cm.

We found three types of Category P. As with Category S, they differed in leaf shape, texture, color and vein shape. They measured between 35 and 40 cm tall.

Our last category, Category T, consisted of four different specimens. The first specimen, T1, measured 4.95 meters. The second specimen, T1B, that was only slightly different from T1, measured 3.30 meters. Another specimen, T2, measured 8.25 meters and the last specimen, T3, measured 24.7 meters. We measured these specimens by using Kendra's height and held the pen up and backed up until the pen matched her height. Then, using the pen we measured how many pens the tree was tall.

Although we built upon the observations of earlier work on the Planet, by using a small scale we were able to observe more different types of plant life.

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