Leah and Kristina,

I think houseplants would be best. That way you can do your experiemnt indoors. Ask at a nursery for something which is easy and grows quickly. If you go to a good nursery, someone there can help you. Make sure you pick plants as identical in size as possible, same height, same number of stems, etc.

The music would be your choice, classical, rock, whatever.

Never heard of Mimosa Pudica, sorry.

Be sure to include all the proper parts of a science experiment: question, procedure, materials, hypothesis, results and conclusion.

Don't forget to carefully measure plants before the experiment, count leaves, if possible.

Remember the plants have to be treated in exactly the same way. Same amounts of water, same amounts of sunlight, etc. If you give them plant food, they must get exactly the same amount.

When your experiment is over, you can measure the height of the plants to compare. Look for other ways to compare, such as number of leaves, leaf width, color.

Good luck.

Mimosa Pudica is the Sensitve Plant. I just got some seeds at http://seedrack.com. The seeds take 21-30 days to germinate. I don't know if this would be good for a music experiment though as they are know for rapid movement when touched. The Semaphore Plant, Desmodium gyrans, might be fun to experiment with music. Its leaves move rapidly, some say in time to music. It is sometimes called the Dancing Plant for this reason.

If the experiment is to see how music affects growth, I would use things like lima beans or carrot tops since you can get these in your kitchen and they grow quickly.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://seedrack.com