Your student starts by planting microgreen seeds in a shallow drainage tray, watering carefully, and positioning the tray under a sunny window or grow light for 12 to 16 hours per day. After 7 to 14 days, once the first true leaves appear, they harvest with scissors, weigh the yield on a kitchen scale, and blend 10 grams with distilled water to create a test solution. From there, four nutrition tests measure chlorophyll as a proxy for antioxidants, Vitamin C levels, nitrate content, and optional total antioxidant capacity. This growing microgreens nutrition testing lab is written for grades 5 through 8 and fits naturally into a botany, nutrition science, or food science unit.

The sheet walks through the full scientific method: a guiding question, a hypothesis prompt, a nine-step procedure, a structured data table with result columns, and a conclusion section that asks students to evaluate their results and plan improvements. Because the experiment spans roughly two weeks from planting to testing, it works best as an anchor activity in a longer unit study rather than a single-session lesson. Completing it demonstrates understanding of plant growth cycles, basic chemistry through test-kit colorimetry, and the connection between farming choices and nutritional outcomes.