18 April Day 9

Me at nine days old!

I have grown more! My height is still 29 mm, but now I have four true leaves. They are dark green and have jagged margins. My leaves are collecting the energy from the light. My roots are absorbing water and nutrients from the soil. My leaves are breathing in carbon dioxide from the air. Fortunately my gardeners make a lot of carbon dioxide. They ALWAYS seem to be talking! All these things are helping me grow. You can see veins on my true leaves. Some of my veins are light green, almost clear, and some of them are brown or purple. My cotyledons have gotten bigger, they are now 20 mm across and they are light green. My stem is kind of pink or purple near my cotyledons and then gets a light green to white near the top. Some of my roots are starting to grow through the sides of my pot. I wish I had some flowers...

16 April Day 7

I see a thing, called light. It's a miniature sun that helps us do photosynthesis with our new leaves. I have two cotyledons and now I have two true leaves. I hope I'll have more. My leaves have bulging veins. My cotyledons will shrivel up and fall off soon. All of my neighbors have now germinated too. Hair is starting to grow on my petiole, the margins of my leaves and on my stem. I don't have any flowers or fruit yet but I hope to have some flower buds soon. I have grown taller, I am now 29 mm tall!

This is a picture of me drawn by one of my gardeners.

The Project Begins

Based on @Astro_Pettit's blog and tweets of @Astro_Zuc, my 4th grade science students decided to write a blog in the voice of their RCBr plant along side their objective observation logs. We read the @Astro_Zuc blog and tweets and my students made some wonderful connections to their work:

• "Hey we're doing the same thing!"
• "Can we share our plants with them?"
• "Those look like our plants!"
• "We need to know how to grow plants in space for food on Mars."
• "We should write as our plants!"
• "Could we make the compost and tea like @Astro_Pettit uses?"

And so we are...

Our Brassica rapa seeds were planted on April 9. They are planted in a special potting media and receive constant light and water.

Here are some of the resources we are referring to to learn how to blog and tweet:

• AstroZucchini Blog on NASA.gov
• AstroZucchini Blog 1 on FragileOasis.org
• AstroZucchini Blog 2 on FragileOasis.org
• AstroZucchini Blog 3 on FragileOasis.org
• AstroZucchini Blog 4 on FragileOasis.org
• @Astro_Zuc on Twitter
• Don Pettit's bio on Wikipedia.org
• Don Pettit's bio on NASA.gov

11 April Day 2

My first cotyledons opened to the light and my roots developed. My cotyledons are butterfly-shaped and light yellow-green with purple edges. My roots are strong and healthy, growing in a tiny pot of soil. I get constant light and constant water. Some of my neighbors have also sprouted, but some have not.