BIO2030 Chap.12 The Growth Experiment and the Laboratory Report
The Growth Experiment and the Laboratory Report
The Growth Experiment and the Laboratory Report takes the largest assessed component apart against the criteria it is marked by. The report is worth thirty five per cent, runs to one thousand words excluding captions, tables and references, and is written from data you collected yourself across weeks two to five. Two facts reorganise how you should approach it.
First, the stated section budgets sum to roughly the whole word limit before you have written anything, so a long introduction is a transfer of marks out of the discussion. Second, the figures criterion carries ten of the thirty five points and is satisfied largely in captions, which makes it the best return per word in the whole task.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The experiment as it was actually run: species, the two nutrient regimes, the two harvests and the conditions
- 02
Why every parameter except water content is calculated on dry weight
- 03
The five formulae with their units, and the denominators that separate the two leaf indices
- 04
The data selection menu, and the requirement to include one growth index and one physiological parameter
- 05
Calculating per plant and then averaging, and the one exception the design forces
- 06
The section by section word budget, and the overrun rule that stops marking rather than deducting
- 07
The figures criterion, its technical checklist, and the sixth band above exemplary
- 08
The results and discussion criteria, and the two failures named inside their band descriptors
Rewrite a weak limitation into one that reaches the top discussion band
- +1Name the first defect against the criterion: a limitation focussed on human error is the explicit trigger for the developing band, and the band above requires a limitation that is not focussed on human error.
- +1Name the second: no solution is proposed, while the top band requires literature based solutions proposed and justified.
- +1Name the third: the unit warns separately that a conclusion about more research being needed will not be looked on favourably unless you specify what further information or experimentation is required.
- +1Replace the limitation with a design level one: the comparison rests on a single twenty one day interval between two harvests, so the growth rate is an average over that window and cannot show whether the treatments diverged early or late.
- +1Attach a cited remedy and a specific proposal: published work on nutrient response addresses this by harvesting at three or more time points and fitting the growth curve rather than taking two end points, so repeating the experiment with an intermediate harvest would test whether the treatment effect is constant across the growth period.
Key terms
- Biological yield
- Total above ground dry matter produced by a plant. It is the denominator of harvest index as the unit defines it, which is why roots sit outside that ratio.
- Standard deviation
- A measure of variation among replicate plants. The figures criterion requires mean and standard deviation to be shown, though no statistical analysis is required for this task.
- Publication ready band
- The sixth band of the figures criterion, above exemplary, worth the tenth mark. It requires only consistency: one style, one font size and one line thickness across all figures.
- Word limit rule
- The stated instruction that markers stop marking at one thousand words and anything past it is not considered, which makes an over length report a loss of the final sections rather than a deduction.
- Design level limitation
- A weakness arising from how the experiment was constructed, such as a single harvest interval or a low replicate number, as opposed to a mistake in carrying it out.
The Growth Experiment and the Laboratory Report FAQ
How many figures do I need, and which ones?
Three in total: two on growth and biomass and one physiological. Within the growth and biomass pair, at least one must be a growth index, meaning relative growth rate, specific leaf area or leaf area ratio, with the other chosen from the same list or from allocation, water content or a morphological measure.
The entry condition for the exemplary band is a conjunction of at least one growth index and at least one physiological parameter, so three excellent biomass figures cannot reach it, and fewer than three figures drops the criterion into its lower bands regardless of how good the prose is.
Why can I not calculate relative growth rate for each individual plant?
Because the harvests are destructive, so the plants weighed at the baseline are not the plants weighed at the end and no individual has both values. The unit therefore tells you to average total dry biomass across plants at each harvest and use those two means with the fixed twenty one day interval.
Every other parameter in the task is different: those are calculated per plant first and the mean and standard deviation are derived from the per plant values, which is also what gives you the error bars the figures criterion requires.
What happens if I go over one thousand words?
Marking stops at the limit and anything past it is not considered in grading. That is not a percentage deduction, so the cost depends entirely on what happens to be at the end of your document, which in the required structure is the discussion and the references, together worth twelve of the thirty five marks.
Since the stated section budgets already sum to roughly the whole limit, the practical consequence is that a bloated introduction directly consumes discussion marks. Captions, tables and references do not count toward the limit, which is another reason to put content into captions where it belongs.
Assessment move
Read this chapter twice, once when the task is set and once the day before you submit, because most of what it contains is procedural and procedural marks are lost by forgetting rather than by not knowing.
Start work from the figures rather than from the prose: choose your two growth and biomass parameters and your physiological one first, check that the pair satisfies the entry condition, and build all three figures in one consistent style before writing a sentence. Then write to the section budgets deliberately, keeping the introduction near one hundred words so the discussion can have its five hundred.
Draft the results as though the hypothesis had been deleted, and move every interpretive sentence out. Draft one design level limitation with a cited remedy early, since it is the single sentence that separates the top two discussion bands. Finally, run the mechanical checklist before submitting, because every item on it corresponds to a stated band condition.
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