After her sunlight experiment, Mary observes that the plants in her garden grow when she waters the soil. She wonders if the plants would grow with the same amount of water, but no soil. Using the steps of the scientific method, explain how Mary would conduct a science experiment to test whether plants need soil to grow.

Mary would start with a hypothesis such as, "I believe that plants with no soil will not grow because there are no nutrients coming from the soil for the plant to grow"

Then she would put the plan in place to start her experiment. She will get the same type of seeds, the same amount of water and sunlight. The only difference between the 3 plants is that one plant will have no soil, the second plant will have 1 inch of soil, the third plant will have the correct amount of soil.

She will run the experiment for 2 weeks to see whether the plants have grown and what the conclusion is. She will record how much the plants have grown every day, she will measure the height of each plant.

At the end of 2 weeks, she will gather all her data and come to a conclusion.