Classroom Insider: Biology, Tobacco Lab
Cheyenne Hurst & Lauren Macumber
March 14th

In Mrs. Weresuk’s 4th period class, the students are planting tobacco seeds and watching them grow. A little background information about the students lab is that tobacco seeds will germinate in as little as three days if they are kept moist. The seeds may have many genes for a particular phenotype, but they are sometimes turned off by environmental factors such as light or temperature.

 The main problem they are investigating is if the presence of sunlight effects the expression of the genes for chlorophyll production in tobacco seedlings. The first thing the students did was  get out two petri dishes for each group and then they put in a filter paper in both petri dishes.

 They then used a pipet to soak the paper that’s in the petri dishes. After that, the students sprinkled twenty five tobacco seeds in each dish. Next, they labeled the first dish “light”  and they put it in a well-lighted area. The students labeled the second dish “dark” then they put the dish in a completely darkened area where there will be no light at all.

 The students plan is to let the seeds germinate for a week and to not touch the dishes at all except to add water if the filter paper becomes dry. At the end of one week, they are supposed to observe the petri dishes, what they are supposed to find is that some seedlings will be pale (albino) with little or no green pigment.

The students have a table they have been given by their teacher and they will record their results in the data table after one week. Josh Barrs, Alex Sandford, Christian Vazquez, and John Hord are all working together to see what color their seeds will turn out to be. “We’re finding out if the seeds will turn out albino with green or no green if we put them in light or dark” said Alex Sandford. 

Cheyenne hurst
RedOnline
Lauren Macumber
RedOnline