Allotments 4 All

A Science fair project presented by a girl in a secondary school in Sussex. In it she took filtered water and divided it into two parts boiled one and microwaved the other then watered plants with it, The results give some food for thought. See the pictures at the link below.

http://usahitman.com/microwave-test/

Poor child - I blame the teachers for allowing such an unscientific project.

Here's an excellent 20 top tips (published by nature this week) for interpreting scientific claims. http://www.nature.com/news/policy-twenty-tips-for-interpreting-scientific-claims-1.14183

"And there is rarely, if ever, a beautifully designed double-blind, randomized, replicated, controlled experiment with a large sample size and unambiguous conclusion" it says. But that should always be the aim, and it could have been in this child's "experiment".

I don't think I have ever read anything less convincing...

It might be interesting to repeat the experiment with rather more plants, blinded samples and  control samples.   Though they said they did repeat it.   I could get that result with the same water.  Looks like one has darker coloured compost, so rather suggest it was over watered.  Perhaps someone was playing a joke.

As you say this is a very poorly thought out experimental technique.

Not sure I understand the principle of two identical plants. I have two kale plants which are genetic clones and appeared more or less identical when planted out.  Now one is about 5 times the size of the other.   

I thought the same as Digeroo.  From the pictures, it definitely looks as though the one that had received the microwaved water had been overwatered. 

Much stricter controls should have been used in this experiment ie. measuring out the water and ensuring that plants receive the same amount.  They should have used far more plants too and have the plants and water labelled by someone not involved in the experiment.  I wonder too why they didn't include untreated tap water in their experiment.