Bleah...history SA is tomorrow :(
Oh well, I don't exactly think that this post will take a rather long time (unless I decide to upload all 431 [1 photo went missing] photos of my seeds...maybe I should do that sometime soon?). Anyway, what I'll be writing in this update is basically a really, really brief summary of my SIP report, which I completed a week ago! >.< It does have some limitations...like I printed it out early, so I couldn't acknowledge some people, but this few are very few...like only a couple or so, and they said they didn't mind.
Yup, so as mentioned above I will write a brief summary - which is really just a brief conclusion! - of my SIP report, and warped as I am by RP, I'll be writing...a really lousy reflection.
(I don't understand why, but my reflections are always near the failing grade. It's sad, because reflection take up a significant chunk of the AA/PT weightage, and there's hardly any AA/PT without reflection.)
Basically, the results show that in order of normal growth was Group C, Group M, and Group B. Group C was the control and was watered with normal tapwater, so it was understandable, compared with heated water (which the gaseous compositions have changed). I did not actually expected any difference between Groups M and B, but Group M seems a bit better.
In my report I'll explain more about why I think Group M is better, but basically I think that Group M has more oxygen, thus there is better plant growth than compared with Group B.
...ok, I said I wouldn't explain, but suddenly I'm all fired up to explain.
The thing is, while I was doing all the trials with microwaving water and such, I did it first with 100ml, then 400ml, because at first I wasn't doing such a large scale experiment (432 seeds were involved in the final experiment, in trials, 32 more seeds. Did you know I had to buy 3 packets of B. rapa?), so I could clearly observed the bubbling in the water. But when I tried with 1.6l of water, to match with the 1.6l boiled at once, I couldn't observe any bubbling.
I didn't think about this until I was writing the report and thinking, "Why does Group M survive better than Group B?" I was thinking along mineral balances and amount of gases, and when I thought of the latter I suddenly remembered I didn't observe any bubbling in microwaved water at all, when I did it with 1.6l of water.
Then I remembered about all the stuff I've read. One site in particular told me to put a chopstick or something to allow "bubbles to form", which was really weird-sounding to me at that time, and no, I didn't put a chopstick because it was an external variable and I don't like external variables. Which meant that microwaving = possibly of no bubbling, and when I checked it up, it opened a whole new world of nucleation sites etc. for me.
It was really cool.
Another thing that is cool, and completely unrelated to this (I think I may want to do this if I had noticed it sooner) was that when we're practicing the guitar - the entire ensemble in a tiny room - I can feel vibrations on my guitar even when the other is like on the other end of the room. I know sound travels via vibrations and maybe they start vibrating the wood on my guitar...but it's kind of weird, because I touched the chair, the stand, the foot stool, even a table, and they didn't really vibrate. Was it because of the sound hole?
Geh, but I'll never know.
In any case, I hated SIP with a passion. Key word: hated. It meant that I didn't like it at first but when it's ending, suddenly I didn't want to let it go. I don't believe in forcing others to learn as schools are unintentionally doing - if I was reading on my own I could go on and on and on reading physics textbooks for days and not get bored at all, but when I actually started learning physics in a classroom I was bored ten minutes into the lesson. (No offence to the teacher, I really loved her, and she was really nice, but...it's SCHOOL, you know?)
I guess, when we were forced to do this I wasn't happy at first, because it's like they're wanting us to learn independently but where was the spirit of independent learning if we had to be told we had to learn? To learn on our own? It was such a hypocritical thing in my opinion and, with all the mess-ups I've had, I wouldn't be surprised if I failed SIP (I hope not, though) and I'm not at all surprised that my hate was kind of justified.
But when it's ending, and you don't have an obligation to do it anymore, somehow you just want to do it again. It's hard and difficult and all, but it was at least interesting, and we could do what we wanted to do without any restraint. I actually wanted to do something space-related, but obviously I lacked the funds (and the resources) to do so, which also contributed to my unwillingness, but when finishing up the project and typing everything out I suddenly realised it was really cool. People expose seeds to microwave energy to see the effect. I suddenly wanted to reproduce their experiments, and see how things actually work.
The whole thing with microwave energy is that it's a really debated thing on the net. I was tricked by the internet scams once, and I really believed it was detrimental, but my friends and family told me it wasn't, and I think that was how I wanted to do microwave stuff. I mean, why do people say that? Are they truly ignorant or do they wish to trick other (guillible) people like me? So when I was able to truly cure my own ignorance, to be able to take into my own hands my learning, it was a novel - and difficulty-fraught - experience that was still enjoyable in the end (even though it was a complete hellish thing at first).
Ok, so maybe my feedback won't be taken into account, but I hope that SIP can continue throughout the years. Some people hate it, and don't learn much from it - and that's their own problem. I think SIP is really good for sieving out those who may originally be unwilling to learn but are gradually coaxed into learning, and I really hope some people out there can understand, at least a slight bit, my feelings, because now I'm feeling very enlightened.
Now I'm wondering if I did well on my reflections this time round. It's not graded (I think) so I can write however I want, and I think it's better for reflections to not be graded, because they'll be honest and truthful then.
Eh. So...yeah. That's all. Thinking about whether I can upload 431 photos in 20minutes...will try >.< It's really boring, so you can skip the photos if you want...taking photos was one of the most hated part, though...
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