Month:

Recipe Ratios: Which recipe uses more chiles?

  • September 9

When using recipes, determining how much of each ingredient is needed is an important task - particularly if you're making an amount different than what the recipe directly instructs! By looking at two different recipes for salsa, and using ratios and unit conversions to make them more easily comparable, we can begin to determine how much of these wonderful garden ingredients we'd need to use for each dish. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant... CONTINUE READING

What determines where leaves are positioned on branches?

  • September 9

Leaves are what plants use to gather sunlight, necessary for plants to grow and thrive. This means that it is to a plant's advantage if their leaves' position is such that all leaves receive the most possible sunlight - minimizing overlaps and shadow wherever possible! Different plants use different strategies and arrangements to make this happen, though there are some common trends across many different species. By using a protractor to measure the angles between leaves, we can tease out some o... CONTINUE READING

How can we estimate the amount of produce in a garden?

  • September 9

In order grow plants efficiently, making certain estimations is valuable - how well plants will grow, how much produce each plant will give use, or, even more fundamentally, how many plants we can fit in a given plot of land. Taking information we know about marigolds as an example, we showcase ways to determine these sorts of important predictions. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DRL 2115393. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or re... CONTINUE READING