1. Ursula Schwebs concluded that electrical pulses in plants could be explained by scientific factors and were not the result of plants responding to environmental stimuli.
2. OBSERVATIONS/DATA
2.1. "I talked to many people about it..."
2.1.1. Preliminary information gathering
2.2. Poinsettia Observation
2.2.1. The poinsettia showed resistance and voltage when connected to the ohmmeter.
2.3. Watering Experiment
2.3.1. Backster claimed that a watered plant registers a higher voltage and resistance due to its "emotional response" to being watered.
2.3.1.1. Schwebs found that her African violet indeed registered a higher voltage and resistance after being watered. She could not confirm that the increase was due to plants feeling emotions.
2.4. Boiling Experiment
2.4.1. Backster claimed that his plants were traumatized by the death of shrimp being boiled alive.
2.4.1.1. Schwebs found that plant resistance does decrease when there is boiled water in the room, but she attributed the decrease to increased humidity. NOTE: Schwebs did not replicate Backster's experiment with shrimp.
2.5. Burning Experiment
2.6. Final Experiment
2.6.1. Backster claimed that plants telepathically can sense danger and will react when danger is near.
2.6.1.1. Schwebs noticed a change in resistance when she approached the plant, regardless of a flame being present.
2.6.2. The original research was from a vague source; a female Canadian physiologist performed experiments that reportedly supported Backster's research: Plants have an emotional response when confronted with danger.
2.6.2.1. Schwebs did not subject any of her plants to danger; she merely walked toward them with different types of shoes.
2.7. Tangential Experiments - U. Schwebs, as a curious eighth grader, designed a few other experiments that were tangential to her original hypothesis.
2.7.1. Questions about Electricity and Plants
2.7.1.1. Why did the meter register when the plant was touched?
2.7.1.2. Why did DC voltage, and not AC voltage register?
2.7.1.3. Where did the voltage come from?
3. PATTERNS
3.1. Plants showed electrical charges whenever Ms. Schwebs came in proximity to them, regardless of what she was holding or what she was doing. "I found that I could influence the charge a plant has just by approaching it without touching." This theme would recur throughout her paper.
4. THEORY
4.1. Cleve Backster's theory was that plants evoke human-like emotional responses when exposed to stressful stimuli.
5. Born from the work of Cleve Backster, a botanist and former CIA employee who claimed to have founded the polygraph program, and published research on plants in the 1960s.
5.1. Questions about Plants
5.1.1. Do plants have feelings?
5.1.2. Do plants think?
5.1.3. Can plants see and hear?