Susan wants to see how different chemicals in the soil affect plant growth. Therefore, she gets all of the same type of plant, sets them up in the same place, waters them the same amount, but then puts different chemicals on each of them. What is the independent variable in Susan's experiment?

The chemicals

The plant growth

The amount of water

Where she set-up the plants

The chemicals

Explanation:

When a scientific experiment is proposed, it is necessary that the dependent and independent variables are identified.

An independent variable is one that does not need the influence of another variable and is responsible for presenting a result that depends on its manipulation. The dependent variable, on the other hand, is one that is influenced by the dependent variable and needs its manipulation to generate a result.

In the question above, we saw that Susan wants to know what results the manipulation of different chemicals will have on plant growth. With that, we can say that chemicals are the independent variable, while plant growth is the dependent variable.

The independent variable is the plant growth or how much the plants grow.