Toxicology experiment and lab report (Environmental Science)

You are trying to determine the effect of salt toxicity on the sprouting of beans for the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We are interested in determining the toxicity of salt (between 0-1%) on beans. In other words, we want to know how high a concentration of salt we can use without significantly impacting the germination rate of beans.

Experimental Design
Formally, in order to apply the scientific method we need to:
State the problem
Develop hypotheses
Design and Perform Experiment
Analyze and interpret the results
Share the conclusions with others

Before you design and run your experiment, read the scientific method document in your Toxicology experiment module and answer questions 1-7 below.
State the problem: We must always have a specific thing that we are trying to measure and a way to measure that hypothesis.

1. What specifically are we trying to find out with this experiment?

Develop hypotheses: We HAVE to have a very clear statement of what we think the relationship between our dependent and independent variables will be. To do this we write hypotheses. Hypotheses should be very clear and MUST ALWAYS BE TESTABLE!

2. Briefly describe the difference between an alternative hypothesis (HA) and a null hypothesis (H0). What does each say about the relationship between our measured effect (dependent variable) and our assumed cause (independent variable)?

3. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

4. What is the dependent variable in this experiment?

State the two hypotheses (null and alternative) for our salt/bean germination experiment below:

5. H0:

6. HA:

7. What endpoint are we going to measure to determine any effects? In other words, what will be looking at in order to determine if our independent variable is affecting our dependent variable?