Botany question about a science experiment..?

I am a science teacher who has not taught botany in several years. Today my fifth grade students did an experiment in which they placed a white carnation and a stick of celery ( both the exact same length) in colored water. They hypothesized which would absorb the water to the tip the fastest. Several thought the celery would due to the visible veins and more surface area in the water. Others thought the carnation would due to less stem mass - therefore less distance to travel. As it turned out - we had a variety of results. Some of the celery turned blue ahead of the carnations, some carnations ahead of the celery, and some were exactly equal. I have my theories - but would like to hear an "experts" explanation as to the unpredictable results. Any takers? I promised my kids I would look into it. Thanks!

Botany question about a science experiment..?
Did you take in to account the number of leaves and their size on the immersed sticks?



This could be the deciding factor. The reason is too obvious to mention.
Reply:i think it may depend on whether or not the two were cut at an angle, with a clean and/or sanitary razor, how much time apart were they cut from eachother, were they both hydrated at the time of cutting....and also the temperature and humidity involved at the time of cutting and experimentation.



Good Experiment!!!
Reply:I'm sorry, but without knowing how tightly controlled your experiment was, it would be impossible for me to hazard a guess.



The variables include solution concentration, physical size of test samples, freshness of test samples, solution temperatures. I doubt that you controlled these variables closely enough.
Reply:I agree with all the answers the first answerer gave. They may all have had an effect. Temperature is an important one. Concentration is important. Freshness of the stems is important, did you freshly cut each stem before putting it in the solution? What else was in the solution? the same in each?Were all the celery stems the same size? the larger ones would have had larger xylem.As he said, unpredictable results could be from unpredictable variations.