I could buy a flower seed packet from grocery outlet. I open the packet finding 4 sunflower seeds. i plant 2 sunflower seeds in 2 pots of soil and plant the other 2 sunflower seeds in 2 pots of sand. I also will water each plant every day and ensure each plant has the same amount of sunlight. Then I can measure the height of the sunflowers after one month.

Question

I could buy a flower seed packet from grocery outlet. I open the packet finding 4 sunflower seeds. i plant 2 sunflower seeds in 2 pots of soil and plant the other 2 sunflower seeds in 2 pots of sand. I also will water each plant every day and ensure each plant has the same amount of sunlight. Then I can measure the height of the sunflowers after one month.
Where in your experiment would random selection occur?

GPT-4o mini · Answer

In your experiment, random selection could occur in the process of choosing which sunflower seeds to plant in soil versus sand. Since you have a total of four seeds, you could randomly select two seeds to plant in soil and the other two to plant in sand. This random selection helps ensure that any differences in growth between the plants in soil and sand are due to the type of growing medium (soil vs. sand) rather than any inherent differences in the seeds themselves.

Random selection ensures that each seed has an equal chance of being placed in either growing medium, which helps to minimize bias in your experiment and leads to more reliable and valid results.