Experiment Accomplishments So Far

So far in my groups experiment on fast plants, we have gathered out materials and prepared the space for our experiment to take place. We found some buckets and poked holes of different sizes into two of them, then tested each to make sure that they would work. From one streamed a small rain which was very light, from another streamed a heavy rain. After that we found two ring-stands and attached the buckets to them so that we had our structure to water the plants with. Then we prepped the living spaces for the plants. We filled 12 small pots with dirt and put 6 in one box and the other 6 in another box. One box will be the group of plants that we water lightly whereas the other will be the group of plants that we water heavily. Our group still has to plant the fast plants and decide upon how much water we will pour on each plant. So far the experiment is going pretty smoothly though. Below are some pictures of our progress...

The set up so far; to the left is the watering structure.

The buckets of dirt

A watering structure up close

Fast Plants

Fast plants have a 28-40 day life cycle so they are easy to use for fast experiments in biology. Factors that regulate growth which include temperature, light, humidity, and nutrients in the soil. We intend to examine how the distribution of water, light or heavy rain, affects the growth of fast plants.

Scientific Method

So I did some research on the scientific method and this is what I came up with...
The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by doing an experiment and making observations.

Step 1
Ask a question.

Step 2
Do background research.

Step 3
Construct a hypothesis.

Step 4
Test with an experiment.

Step 5
Analyze results.

Step 6
Draw conclusion.
If the hypothesis is true, report the results.
If the hypothesis is false or partially true, go back to step 3.

So, now we just have to discuss the DNA example as a group.

Adventures With Tobias

Observations Taken From the Location of the Biome:

-Surrounded by trees
-Dead leaves cover most of the ground
-Moss
-Not a lot of sunlight --> shady
-Soil with a lot of rocks
-Hard ground
-Pine tree nearby
-Dead trees in area

Everything Found In the Biome Bucket:

-1 Live Oak Leaf

-6 Twigs

-A Large Amount of Moss

-A Large Amount of Dirt

-1 Small woody plant

-2 Acorns

-Roots (Attached to Moss)

-6 Pine Needles

-1 Ant (His name is Tobias)

Overall, I would say that we were successful in finding a variety of different elements of nature, including one living organism. Below are some pictures of different things that were in our biome bucket, however there is not photo of Tobias because he was too small to photograph. 

Some of the Roots

Everything We Found

Live Plants 

(ignore the golden rod...we picked it up on the walk back.)

Abiotic Factors Experiment Idea

One abiotic factor that one could experiment with is temperature. To start off a small experiment that one could do with temperature, one could have two of the same kind of flowers that haven't completely matured yet. The first could be put into an isolated cool space and the second could be put into an isolated warm space. Each plant would have the same amount of light, water, and soil. The temperature would be the dependent variable. The goal would be to see the effect that the different temperatures had on the plants. Another abiotic factor that one could experiment with is light. Again, one could have two of the same kind of flowers that haven't fully matured yet. This time the dependent variable would be light, so the plants would be put into two spaces, each with the same temperature, soil, and amount of water, etc. The only difference would be that one space would have a lot of access to sunlight, and artificial lamps, whereas the second space would have no access to sunlight. The goal in this case would be to see the effect that different amounts of light have on the same plants. These are two simple experiment plans that test abiotic factors.

What I Learned On The Nature Walk

On the nature walk, our class visited a temperate, deciduous forest. We could tell that the ecosystem was deciduous because, since we are approaching autumn, we saw the leaves beginning to change color. This is a sign, during the fall season that the leaves are about to drop from the tress. The only exceptions in the forest were the conifer trees. One example of this is white pine, whose needles do not all drop depending on the season. We could also understand that the forest was temperate because when the temperature rises or drops, it is not extreme. The weather in this region of New York is very moderate. Some abiotic factors that my group noticed, which are important to the compositions and activity of the ecosystem was sunlight, precipitation, change in seasons, and elevation. Sunlight was particularly important because the growth in the lower level of the forest depends on how much sunlight is let through the trees above. In this particular forest that we visited, I noticed that there was not a lot of lower level growth because the taller trees were very close together. Over all, it was a very enjoyable, informative nature walk.