Question

Please say if i am right or not


A scientist wants to determine how beneficial fertilizer is for tomato plants. He sets up an experiment with two rows of plants in the same g



reenhouse. He puts fertilizer in the soil of one row of plants and not in the other. Then he waters all of the plants for a month and records the results.

1. Which group of plants is the control group?

The group of plants that did not receive fertilizer is the control group.
Both groups of plants are control groups.

Answer 1

is it both because its both test subjects

Answer 2

Yeah, the one without the fertilizer is the control group

Answer 3

Definition of control group: The control group is defined as the group in an experiment or study that DOES NOT receive treatment by the researchers and is then used as a benchmark to measure how the other tested subjects do.

Answer 4

what would that really mean because thats to hard for me to understand

Answer 5

Ok basically if you are testing for something (in this case the fertilizer and how effective it is), you need to know that IT REALLY WORKS.

As in the scientist probably thinks that this fertilizer will make the plant grow faster than normal (for example) but how does he know that it's the fertilizer doing this? How does he know that it's growing faster than normal? He needs a plant that does not have fertilizer. Since it does not have fertilizer it's growing normally. So he can compare this fertilizer plant to the normal plant without fertilizer.

Therefore the plant without fertilizer is the control.

Answer 6

can?

Answer 7

Ohhhh Thanksss could you help me with one more thing?

Answer 8

yeah sure

Answer 9

whats variables mean in the scientific method?

Answer 10

I think they are factors that affect the experiment. I'm not sure how to explain the term variables but I can explain the following (google is better at this):

Dependent Variable: Usually only 1 dependent variable --> the variable that you are measuring/observing. (in this case, the speed at which the plant grows)

Independent Variable: the variable that you change so you can get the dependent variable (usually there is only ONE independent variable). In this case, it would probably be the presence of fertiliser or type of fertiliser.

Controlled Variable: there are many controlled variables -->the variables that are kept constant to ensure that the experiment is fair. e.g. the same greenhouse is used (if not one greenhouse could be warmer or have more sunlight than the other. In this case you wouldn't know if it was the conditions of the greenhouse of the fertiliser that is affected the plant's growth)

Answer 11

Yoo i appreciate your help and really thank you for doing all this work to help me :D... thanks!!!