From Lauralee's speech.

Introduction:

NASA has stated that Mars has about 45% less light that it receives than Earth does, because of its position relative to the sun. Because of this, growing food on mars will have to be able to withstand a lack of light. I have chosen one vegetable that is already being studied, radishes, and another that is not being studied, green onions.  Experiment summary:I will plant the ten seeds on the same day, in the same conditions. During the experiment I will monitor how they grow, how much I water them, how often I water, and other care taking facts. One pot of green onions, and one pot of radish seeds will be grown under 50% of normal light, and one pot of green onion and one pot of radish seeds will be grown under normal lighting conditions. Each of the green onion pots will have ten seeds in them, and the radish pots will have ten seeds in them.  Objective:To find out if radishes and green onions will grow under 50% lighting conditions, and if so, how they compare to normally grown green onion and radishes. Hypothesis:The seeds in less light will grow worse, dying or being delayed in growth, due to the lack of light. The delayed growth will be a result of the decrease in photosynthetic activity. To show that the experiment plants are growing less effectively, I will measure height, time it takes for the seeds to sprout, and color. I will also have images to compare the two pots with to confirm that the experiment group is delayed in growth. For the normal conditioned seeds, they will grow better in comparison to the 50% of light seeds, because they will receive the full amount of simulated sunlight, leading to normal photosynthesis. They will be normal in their growth, on track to be harvested after 21 days.  Method:I will use four three gallon pots filled with soil to plant the seeds in. One pot will be the control for radishes, which has nothing different for it. This pot will contain 10 seeds two rows with six inches between the rows, and two inches between the seeds planted. It will be grown according to the directions on the package, and under 100% normal lighting conditions from a growth light. The second pot will have radish seeds that are grown in 50% light, with the 10 seeds. Similarly, the third pot will be the control green onion seeds, with one row of nine seeds. For last pot, nine green onion seeds will be grown under 50% light conditions through a grow light.  Results:Overall, the control radishes were taller, before harvesting, than their experiment counterparts. The control green onions, on average, were shorter than the experiment green onions throughout the experiment.While looking at the graphs, the experiment radishes has a smoother accent than the control radishes. There does not seem to be a correlation between the time the light was on and how much the plants grew, but the total lumen (sunlight) exposure to the plants affected how they grew. Like the radishes, the experiment green onions had a more extensive root system which made them taller in the end. Conclusion: In this run through, the control radishes were taller before harvesting, but shorter after measuring the root system of the experiment radishes. While the control radishes grew more between measurements, they did not have the same height in the end. This means the hypothesis that the experiment radishes will do worse than the control radishes was not correct. While the less light plants did have less photosynthetic activity, and were shorter than the control radishes before they were harvested, they had a better root system which was not predicted. While radishes are known to be able to winter over, it takes a specific species to thrive in the winter, which is not available in the spring and summer time. 
For the control green onions, they were overall shorter than the experiment green onions. This proved my hypothesis wrong that the control green onions would grow better than the experiment green onions. One reason this may be is because green onions are known to winter over, and the tops, which is what we harvested in this experiment, are what grows in the winter. If the half-light is simulating winter, it would make sense that they did fine and grew normally for the tops, and created a more complex root system, which is characteristic of winter plants.