Hmmm, I suspect a bit of procrastination is evident here; either in putting off the project, or putting off learning how to care for the plants. Neither your teacher nor Nature is going to like that - the teacher may flunk you, but as you are finding out, Nature is less forgiving and gets rid of failures whether it's the plant's fault or not. Meanawhile, you have a problem because A) it takes time for noticeable differences in growth/coloring to be apparent to the casual eye and B) most houseplants are sturdy enough to tolerate mistreatment such as soil variation for literally months before you can see a difference (or else they are so tender that death will take place due to wrong temperatures, poor light conditions, or improper moisture long before they can react to different sorts of soil). See if your teacher will accept a report on how soil variances affect the seed sprouting and young growth. Lettuce will sprout quickly and grow rapidly -- and the seed should be available at your local stores; I'd suggest using a leaf lettuce such as Black-seeded Simpson. Get all your samples of soil (and label them when you get them), and let them get up to room temperature. Buy a pack of 1-oz paper cups and label 6 cups to match each soil label. use a pin to poke a hole in the bottom of each cup. Be sure the soil is moist but not wet -- stick your finger in: if you feel dampness that's good; mud is bad; dry as dust is very bad. Fill each little cup with the matching soil and tap the top with one finger [you'll probably tap the soil down and need to add more]; then put 2 or 3 seeds on top of the soil. Now sprinkle more soil to cover the seeds - this is a guessing game... just guess how much will put another 1/8" soil over the seeds. Next each pot should be sprinkled with enough water to dampen the top of the soil -- fill a clean windex bottle with warm water and mist! Now put the pots on a tray or paper plate, cover the whole plate with a transparent cling wrap, and put it onto the top of your water heater or a similar place where they can be warm but not cooked. A sunny windowsill is good -- if the sill itself is warm: put your hand on the sill for a couple minutes to feel the temperature: if your fingers get cold, any seeds will shiver instead of sprouting. Prepare your report form now: describe the soil types; note the date seeds were planted. Every day you will need to check the soil to be sure the soil's surface is moist (carefully - don't poke the seeds). In about a week, the seeds should start sprouting: remove the cling wrap (it helps keep the seeds moist but it will hurt the sprouts) and then note when each seedling came up; what color the leaves are, and use a ruler to measure how much growth occurred since the previous day. The seedlings will need sunshine (and at this time of year, several hours of additional light from a lamp) in order to grow. Every day or two, you will need to water very deeply - that means get the soil really wet! or else the sprouts will flop over and die of thirst. Within 2 weeks you should have enough information to determine how much, if any, difference was apparent between the plants. If you study up a bit, you might be able to determine whether the difference was caused by soil type (clay, sandy) or by nutrients (was one soil more loamy than another). Oh, and if you want, - after you write your report - you can make a salad out of the subject. Good luck, and let us know what happens.

Might look at Internet Options, content tab, push the AutoComplete button.

This is happening more and more. We are in a serious down turn inthe building and realestate market. While experts tend to think we will level off inearly 2008 and supswing towards the end of the year, many builders have had to go outo f business, or lay good prtions of their crews off. They are hesitant to tie up the money in building spec homes as they do not know how long they will have to sit on them, and if you consider the interest paymens on a 2 million dollar mortgage cna take the profit out of the house in a very short time. Many of the high end builders with handpicked crews are willing to work on projects they would never have considered taking in years gone by. They are also willing to do so at pretty bargain prices just to keep thier crews busy so they don't lose good men. So take advantage of the situation and enjoy

Update: I finally found a way to read my clippings on "my page", but I still don't see how to delete anything. What am I overlooking? In the meantime, I discovered that it is simpler just to select/copy items of interest and paste them into a WORD document. It is much easier to copy a whole discussion thread than it is to clip each separate entry. Now I can group several threads according to topic. In a couple of hours, I was able to put together 50+ pages of information about undercounter lighting, recessed lighting, florescent bulbs, etc. We are attending a lighting seminar this evening. We attended a similar seminar last year when we began thinking about remodeling. Now it is time to order lights this week, so we need an updated refresher. This forum has helped me formulate many questions that I never would have dreamed of asking. Thank you!!