Introduction

The wildflower project is to reinforce our scientific skills outside of the class. By identifying and
pressing plants, we are able to explore the relationship between nature and human. Furthermore,
the wildflower project can also improve our understanding of multiple subjects. My flowers are
mostly collected in SSFS and neighborhoods. My scientific research questions are as follow:
Why does the number of wildflowers living in an open field higher than the flower living in a
shady place? Why there are different species of wildflowers in different time? How does the
moisture of soil affect the speed of growth?

Materials
● Phone camera
● Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide
● Photo album
● Paper towel
● Heavy books for pressing
● Pen

Procedure
1. Identifying flowers: First, observe the shape and position of leaves, and the number and
shape of petals. Then, after finding it in the book, read the definition carefully.
2. Collecting flowers: Picking up the flowers after identifying them.
3. Pressing flowers: After picking up flowers, place the flowers between two paper towel,
and spread their petals and leaves. Then use a heavy book to press on the flowers. Leave
them until dry.
4. Mounting flowers: When the flowers are dry, put them into the sticky pages.
5. Labelling flowers: Print out the scientific name, common name, family name, city,
county, state, habitat, date collected, id book, page number, and collector of each flower.
Discussion
From my perspective, I got the chance to better know the nature through the wildflower project. I
learned to identify unknown wildflower, and I can recognize some wildflowers so far. Also, I
learned how to make wildflower samples, for instance, the process of pressing and mounting
flowers. The mistake I made was that I pressed the flowers too early before I even identify them.
When I tried to identify them, the flowers were already dry and I hardly recognize the original
appearances. As the result, the identification process was more difficult. If I could do it
differently, I would identify the flowers before pressing and drying them. The pressing process
went well and the petals and leaves are kept fully. I learned some tricks in this project. First,
always take some pictures of the flowers for identification in case the petals fall. Second, putting
the flowers between pages in a heavy book is helpful for neat pressing. Furthermore, I enjoy
going into the woods with my friends and discovering new flowers that I have never seen. It is
cheerful when I see pretty flowers. There are three trends in my data: 1. Violet family is the most
common flowers appeared in the early spring. 2. I picked less flowers on a rainy day. 3. More
flowers appeared near the fields and woods than water.

Conclusion
For my first research question, more wildflower that live in an open place because they can have
more sunlight and water to photosynthesize. For my second research question, the weather
changes gradually, so there are different flowers blooming. For my third research question, the
moisture of soil has a huge effect of the growth of flowers. Neither too wet nor too dry can help
the growth. The two new research questions I want to raise now are: 1. Why there are more mint
flowers than violet flowers? 2. Why does some flowers only live near water? According to my
data, it shows that I picked up more flowers on a sunny day rather than a rainy day. There are
more mint flowers than other species of flowers.