Okay--revising the experiment for use of plants (poinsettia or ivy): I think that even the poinsettia would show changes during the three week period, but I would be worried about leaf drop/loss with the poinsettia. You probably should do the following during the experiment: 1) count the number of leaves on each plant. If you are within a leaf or two, remove a leaf or two from the leafier plant near the bottom (the worst-looking leaves) to make the number even. Do this before you start the experiment. 2) Weigh the plants. The analysis might not show any differences between the two regimens in terms of net growth, but when divided by weight might show a difference. Try to make sure that the plants start with approximately equal soil moisture levels--you could use a soil moisture meter to make sure that this stays the same. Weigh the plants every time you measure them, and if you can measure soil moisture, do that every time as well. An inexpensive proxy for a soil moisture measurement would be to place a square or circle of paper towel or coffee filter on to the surface of the soil, and measure how long it takes for the paper to become damp. 3) The place where you should see significant change is not perhaps in overall length of the plants, but the length of the stems between leaves (length between leaf nodes). To measure this difference effectively, put a small piece of twist-tie around the bases of the leaves you want to measure between so that you can find those leaves and stems again. Don't make the twist-tie very tight. You could use yarn and tie it loosely, as well. Don't make the tie or yarn pieces any bigger than absolutely necessary. If you wanted to be really systematic, you could get those little jewelry price tags that attach with a thread loop and number the tags. For your introduction and conclusions, you will want to look up information on the types of light (just like I mentioned with the seed experiment) and information on "etiolation". Etiolation, or lengthening of the stem between leaf nodes is what you would expect to see with a lack of light or with the "wrong" kind of light. The suggestions I made about using a light meter still hold, because another question that should be asked is whether it's the distance to the light source that may cause lengthening. By weighing the plants at each point, you can also control for additional biomass (plant growth) production. My guess is that the plants in both groups would be about the same--but that the stems and leaves under one treatment would be thinner and longer. If you really want to have fun with the biomass portion, at the end of the experiment, compare the differences in the plants visually (and note those differences), then dump the plants out of their pots, rinse the plants clean of as much soil as humanly possible, and leave the plants to dry. THEN weigh the plants and compare the masses. Which treatment, if any, produced the most biomass? Was there any difference in the size of the root mass? I realize that with the exception of weighing, these observations are more subjective and qualitative, but it could lead to more sensible data analysis and better subsequent experimental proposals. Don't forget to compare the color and quality of the leaves in both plants: one group of plants will probably have leaves that tend more toward yellow, and one more toward green. You could use something like a process color chart or embroidery floss sample card to describe the differences in color more accurately. I hope that you aren't absolutely overwhelmed by all this--I get into science and things just take off...

A few things: First, there is NO evidence that plants respond to music of any kind. I am fully aware of all the silly "experiments" quoted in the dovesong website, but the protocols and methodologies used in these were so bad, and the controls so poorly selected, that NO information can be gleaned from them. What they DO respond to is loud volumes, which, whether you call it thigmomorphogenesis, or any other thing (BTW, the definition in the link above is incorrect) results in stunted growth and poor growth. I have had numerous "discussions" about this with its proponents on the net. To a person they were not trained in scientific method, and were not in a postion to evaluate the claims made by sites like dovesong. As part of this ongoing debate, I was "forced" to undertake this experiment a few times myself. Each time the result was differnt. As anyone here probably knows, any given batch of seeds will respond differntly. Chance will ALWAYS make one batch outperform another. In my latest experiment (using snap beans) the controls in silence did the best, the ones exposed to classical (that was supposed to aid their growth) were doing so badly that I had to rescue the seeds and hand transplant, as they seemed to have no idea which way was up. The one exposed to rock faired better, almost as good as controls. My experience, and that of other (usually children in science fairs) indicates that it is merely luck of the draw. In any given experimental run, any batch can do better. That is why you need LARGE sample sizes, and repeated experimental runs. None of the experiments on the dovesong site has been replicated consitently. This is at the heart of science, and it would be nice if science fairs did more to get this point across. Elsewise I can flip a coin and conclude that coins always land tails up. Not just MHO, but the result of empirical evidence. As the great physicist Richard Feynmean said, if your theory does not agree with experimental data, it is wrong. Period. Second, I have had many conversations on this topic with Ross Koning, the author of the above referenced page, and I can assure you that it definitely is NOT his position that poeple are "too dumb and ill equipped [sic] and there is nothing to be learned from music and plant projects anyway, sort of arguments." At least not everyone. What he IS saying is that children learning in underfunded schools with teachers who are not able to individually shepherd children through the complicated maze of necessary controls and protocols are done more harm than good using this as an experiment in a science fair, as it teaches bad science, and helps to propagate this myth to the next generation of impressionalbe young people who are not critical enough to question things adults tell them, and just assume that they are true. While I certainly do not agree with Ross on everything, in fact I DO think that these experiments can be performed, as long as the teacher does not start out by saying that "you will find that the ones exposed to Mozart will do better," and makes sure they use a large sample size and adequate controls. In fact, these non-conformatory experiments are actually far more informative, scientifically thatn those that have a positive result, and lead to better science education. Not sure how great a sciece fair projst it would make, since most people will see the results as a failure. Perhaps the experiment should not be set up as "how music aids plant growth," but "challenging long-standing assumptions that music does affect plant growth."

If you google vermicomposting and kids you can get all kinds of ideas. The food idea sounds do-able in 3 weeks and taking pictures is a great idea. Some other food ideas: In one container put fresh chunks of food, in another food that's been frozen and thawed, in another food that has been liquified in a blender, in another cut up food that's about a week old . Which do they start eating sooner? There's a study on why worms seem to gather together. They thought maybe they left a trail (as ants do) and the other worms would follow. In the experiment, they had a central area with 2 choices of ways to go to food. They put one worm in the central area to see where it went. They then added other worms. They didn't necessarily go where the first one did (therefore, they concluded that they weren't leaving a trail). When they put a number of worms in together, they tended to all go to the same place. Their conclusion was that they just have a herd mentality and tend to follow other worms. Wouldn't hurt to try it out yourself. Some of the foods they don't like are citrus, onions, garlic. They love melon. Freeze a slice and thaw (so that you're killing the fruit flies--I didn't freeze mine the first time and I was really sorry).

"One last thing is for the student to know why their experiment is important in the real world." One of my problems with the original hypothesis of which kitchen scraps would a worm prefer is how that makes a difference. It's not practical to separate food scraps into separate components. You might show that worms prefer watermelon rinds to beans but have you ever heard anyone complain about the amount of watermelon rinds causing problems at the landfill even after the 4th of July picnic? In this world of 'going green', I think I'd look at items that do present problems at the landfill but should not. A recycling company wants the easy to recycle stuff like newspaper, magazines, junkmail and old telephone books. Even in our city where we now have an active recycling initiative for paper and plastic we have things that are routinely sent to the landfill. A couple things come to mind. One is the papertowels from a restaurant or airport restroom. You could probably even get the information from the airport to compute the tonnage of waste paper they deal with. Another is disposable diapers -even though human waste is probably not something I would think a young child should be exposed to. And I'm not sure how well the worms can handle decomposing diapers anyway. A better choice would be lawn scraps. Particularly now that this is the time of year people will sending tons to the landfill instead of composting it themselves. You could even separate the lawn refuse into pure grass clippings vs chipped shrubbery scraps. I am aware that these will heat up and all that but you can do a week of precomposting them all after innoculating them with a measured amount of casting tea before adding the worms. The experiment would then not be a preference study but rather one of efficiency. Perhaps a mixture as another variable. After a specified time, sift the vermicompost for castings and compare with unprocessed material. You can do both bulk and weight comparisons.