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Hi All, I received a small grant ($500.00)and am using it to support growing Fast Plants. We have about 320 7th graders and I want to make the most of the grant. I was considering buying the florescent lighting systems from the company that sells fast plants. Has anyone used used these or constructed the make your own lighting houses using CFLs, crates and aluminum foil? I plan to study growth, development, reproduction and genetics. Any thought or advice will be greatly appreciated. Lisa

It's much cheaper to build your own light-box: http://www.fastplants.org/how_to_grow/growing_lighting/light_box_system.php I have done this project as a student, and I am planning to this for my student-teaching this semester. GOOD LUCK! PLANTS ARE AMAZING! -Tasnim

Thank you for your post, we decided to build the light boxes as you suggested :)

Did you end up buying a kit? I can't figure out if it would make more sense to purchase the soil from home depot or something...

I used fast plants for a short summer biology course with high school students. A prior instructor had built the lighting stands, so all I needed were the kits. I was amazed at how much growth we were able to measure in such a short time span, and the students really enjoyed it. It was great for intraspecific competition experiments (vary plant density and measure growth). You could test many different hypothesis (fertilizer treatments, etc.) If you have a longer time for growth, you can measure reproduction - flowering and seed set too under intraspecific competition (varying plant densities). Great idea to experiment with genetic crosses too. We did not have time for flowering in the short summer course, but it should be feasible with a longer semester time span. Have fun. Dorothy