Although many people don’t know it, beans are a type of seed. You can use a bean to grow a bean plant. Just wet a paper towel and fold it up so that it will fit around the inner edge of a foam cup. Then slide a bean between the wet paper towel and the cup. Wet the towel every day, and you will soon see a green shoot emerging from your bean! Eventually, the shoot can turn into a plant. Bean plants grow relatively quickly, so they’re perfect for science experiments.
Many classrooms do this basic bean plant experiment to examine the stages of the growth of a plant. Create three foam cups as described above. Place one in a very sunny area, one in a partially sunny area, and one in a dark area (such as the inside of a drawer or closet). Each day, compare the growth of the three plants. If possible, measure the plants daily and create a chart showing their respective growths. This experiment can help you see the impact of sunlight on the growth of bean plants.
Although the above experiment is a fun way of growing bean plants for science, the answer is obvious to anyone who understands how plants grow. Because plants use sunlight to do photosynthesis, a plant needs adequate sun in order to grow well. However, there are several different types of bean plant experiments that can help you explore bean plant growth in more depth:
· Water – Do bean plants grow better with a lot of water? A little water? Somewhere in between? Add different amounts of water to the paper towel each day to discover the ideal amount of water a bean plant needs to grow.
· Fertilizer – Do fertilizers really help bean plants grow? Try different types of fertilizers and see which makes your bean plant grow the tallest and healthiest. Remember to grow one plant without fertilizer as a control.
· Soil – Once your bean plants have shoots that are a decent size, try planting some of them in cups with different types of soil. You might want to try sand, dark soil, reddish soil, or whatever other types of earth you can find.
· Music – Some people believe that music can help plants grow. Design an experiment to test this by giving some of the bean plants different amounts of music each day. Do those plants grow better than the ones that were not around music?
These bean plant experiments make growing a bean plant for science fun and interesting. Think about more bean plant experiments you can try to help you learn about how plants grow. This lima bean plant experiment for preschool is one place to start.