The Growth of a Bean Plant

Our group entered our data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. We then are going to use the spreadsheet to make a graph.

Here is a picture of our spreadsheet that we created using Excel.





Week 0 - At the start of the project, the bean plant was a small seed that was only about 1.5 inches long. It was a cream color and had a soft texture. We placed the seed in a bag and placed a little water in the bag after putting the bag by the window.

Week 1 - The seed has begun to slowly sprout. It is not 2.5 inches long; it has grown a whole inch since last week. Green leaf-like stems have begun to come out of the seed. We continue to water the bean daily and keep it under the sun.

Week 2 - The seed is really starting to grow into a plant, and it is now 5 inches long. It has doubled in size since last week. Leafs and stems are now sprouting.

Week 3 - The seed is now 7.5 inches long. It seems that the bean plant grows about 2.5 inches long after the trend from the past 2 weeks. The seed is barely visible now. It is starting to form more into a plant.

Week 4 - It now appears to be a plant. The plant is 9 inches long, again following the trend of growing 2.5 inches this week. It kind of looks like ivy, it has a stem with leaves coming from it. The plant is also getting too big for the bag and needs more water now.

Week 5 - We are done watering the plant. It has grown to a total of 11 inches long. The growth is no longer following the trend of growing 2.5 inches every week since it only grew 2 more inches this week. It looks much the same as last week. We do not think it will grow much more if we were to keep watering it and keep it in the sun.

Exploring Assistive Technology

Text to Speech

This assistive technology tool allows one to type in text and then the text is spoken aloud. In the above screen shot, I typed in "The lesson of the day is..." and then chose an English-speaking female to speak that text. Many options of speech (English-speaking male, Chinese, etc.) are offered as well. This would be beneficial to students with disabilities concerning reading and comprehending written information, such as those students with dyslexia.

Windows Magnifyer

Windows Magnifyer is an assistive technology tool that can be found at the Ease of Access Center on the Control Panel in Windows. The above screen shot shows where to find this tool, and also above that, a shot of what the tool looks like in action. The user scrolls across the screen, and the images scrolled across are magnified and displayed up top. This tool would be beneficial to those with visual impairments, such as ones that make it hard to read fine print.


On-Screen Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard is another assistive technology tool that Windows offers by going to the Ease of Access Center through the Control Panel. The above screen shot shows the actual on-screen keyboard as it would display on the computer screen. The user of this tool would simply use the mouse and click on whatever key as needed. This tool would benefit those with dexterity disabilities. These students would use this because they may have a hard time using all of their fingers when typing on a regular keyboard, but by using this tool, they only have to use the click of a mouse.