Materials

• Rice seeds (If not available, any other plant seed can be used. Rice seed was chosen because of its importance to South Carolina history)
• Six flowerpots
• Planting soil
• Spacebag (Vacuum packed storage bags found at specialty stores such as Linens and Things)
• Aerated opaque cover

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Procedure

1. Before activity begins plant rice seeds in seedling trays until you have six seedlings of roughly equal size (can do this with students).
2. Explain to students that they will be determining what plants need to survive. Set six flower pots up in the classroom near a sunny window. Fill four with potting soil. Another one will have potting soil with grass growing in it. This can be accomplished either by planting grass seed in the pot a few weeks before the activity begins, or by buying a square of grass turf at a nursery and cutting it out to fit the pot. The last one will have not have soil in it. Each pot will be labeled. The pot with no soil will be labeled "No soil". The pot with grass will be labeled "No space". The other four will be labeled "No air", "No water", "No sunlight" and "Control". Each pot will have a seedling placed in it. The ones with soil will have the seedlings transplanted into the soil.. The empty pot will have the seedling placed on the bottom of it. Except for the pot labeled "No water", all of the pots will be watered. After watering, the "No air" pot will be placed in a sealed Spacebag with the air removed and the "No light" pot will be placed under an aerated opaque cover.
3. Each day the students will water the pots, except the "No water" pot, and observe what is happening in each of them. They will write or draw their observations in a journal. If the students are not able to write yet, the teacher should record the students’ observations in a classroom journal or have students draw their observations in their own journals. They should do this each day with the day labeled. If they see no change, they should write "No change". For example:
   
   Day 3
   No soil: No change
   No space: No change
   No air: No change
   No sunlight: No change
   No water: Turning brown, leaves wilting
   Control: Growing
4. After two weeks, the students should compare what happened to each of the  rice seedlings. The students will review their journals, compare the things each plant was receiving or not receiving, what happened to each plant because of this and make guesses about what plants need to survive. Class will discuss the results and consider whether they think their results are true of all plants.

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Follow-up question

• If we planted rice that was bought at the grocery store, would it grow?
• How do the plants in the schoolyard get air, food, water, soil and space?