Simple Science Sunday ~ To Microwave or Not to Microwave? That is the Question…

Really when it all came down to it, this was super simple…but it was a lot of fun! I saw an experiment that Jodi at Granola Mom for God was doing on her site {Part 1 and Part 2} and figured that we needed to run our own little experiment too.

The experiment was simple and straightforward ~ buy three of the same plants and ‘feed’ them each a different type of water. One was on a strict ‘boiled-water’ diet, one was ‘microwaved-water’ and one just plain ol’ water. We wanted to see if the manner in which the water was treated made any difference in the quality of life of the plant.

Why, you might ask?  I was really, truly curious to see what our results would show and if subsequently we would be chucking a microwave to the curb. I am well aware that Snopes has this experiment on their website, but after seeing what was happening over at Jodi’s house…well, I wanted in on the challenge.

The Plants

I chose three lovely pansies as our victims, plucked off all the dead growth from them and set them up outside to start the experiment. All three plants were given fair and equal treatment, other than the water that they were fed. Their rights were:

~ Receiving a form of filtered water: Filtered {straight-up}, filtered & boiled, and filtered & microwaved. All water was stored in the same type of glass jars that all ran through the same dishwasher cycle to begin with and covered with a lid so the water wouldn’t evaporate or get contaminated.

~ Fair and equal time in the sunshine and wind {and one day of rain}.

~ A rotation around our porch so that not one of the plants could complain about the angle of the sun’s rays {or lack thereof}.

~ Protection from cold weather and harmful children.

~ Equal servings of water. If one plant received 1/2 cup of water, the other two received the same amount, or whatever amount was given…just to keep plant sibling rivalry down.

The plants were assigned numbers that no one, not even Daddy, knew the significance of the numbers. Number 1, 2, and 3 ~ ‘cause we’re fancy like that.

And because I’m mean, I’m not going to tell you which plant is which.

The Results

After almost three weeks, I lined our plants back up and took a mug-shot of them all together again ~ from 1 to 3.

And to give them each a little more attention, here they are a little more ‘close-up’:

To be ‘fair to plant number 2, it was definitely the runt of the bunch when they were purchased. But I’m curious ~ which one out of the three do you think looks the best? The worst?

I’ll let you all have a chance to comment and then I’ll chime in with another post later this week to reveal the secret identity of each of the plants…so stay tuned, but first CHIME IN!!! What do you think?