Blog 13: Le Video!

Hypothesis time!!

Hypothesis: The plants will grow higher and richer in the less dense pots because they will be able to have plenty of resources to process in order to grow. 
Prediction: If the fast plants grows in a less dense environment it will grow higher and stronger with the extra resources required.

Key Grapsh

For our data collection, we will be recording most of our information at the end of the experiment. We will be doing height, dry mass, and color. We had thought that the plants would grow better (higher, more, etc…) with less plants in the pot, but now we have found that so far the plants have seemed healthier in the more densely populated pots. Therefore I think our key graph will have an increase, showing the height and dry mass increasing with the more plants in the pt.

Fast Plants, Day 1

There wasn't much to do for the class experiment today, but we found there was an issue with the lights needing to be closer to the plants, so we had to move the lights down. The seeds were planted yesterday, so we had to water them today. We found that the number of sprays we did on the plants wasn't enough, seeing as the plants were bone dry, so we changed it from three sprays to six, which we did today. Other than that, the plants are ready to go and all that's left to do is wait. (And tend to the plants, of course…)

Our fast plants!

What Will Be Measured

And so continues the plant experiment. As mentioned before, we will be seeing how the number of seeds in one pot affects the germination of a seed. As also mentioned before, there are 36 pots shoved under two long lights. We will be giving each plant the same, measured amount of water and about 12 hours of light. Now we just have to plant our seeds, fix a few smaller details, and begin watching the plants. We'll have to wait to see how long it takes for the plant to germinate, (how we will watch this, I am not sure) and then sprout. We will probably be watching the plants afterward and see how the lone plants grow compared to the more crowded plants, each pot being more or less crowded than the other.

Experiment Prep

On Friday we finally began the execution of our experiment. For this experiment, we are experimenting with how the density of the plants affects the germinating of the seeds. For this experiment, we used two lights, 36 pots, some water and dirt, and the seeds, which we haven't planted yet.

For the experiment, we have finally set up our lights, (or light, the second light isn't working yet) on a set of pipes and set the small flower pots beneath the lights then filled them with  dirt.

The lights are strung up on the pipe stands with S-hooks and chains that connect to the light and hold them up.

The light rigging with poles, chains and hooks.

Beneath them are the 36 pots, size 4 standard filled with dirt. To add the dirt we found a smaller pot, a 3 standard and filled them to the top and poured them into the larger 4 standards.

The small, 3 standard cup we used to measure dirt amounts

Size 4 standard cups we are using for this experiment under the lights

The Pot 'O Bugs

One thing I learned this week is that when digging through a bucket full of dirt, leaves and other biotic samples from the outdoors is that it is much harder to find the bugs when there is a small, miniature pond in the bucket due to an unexpected, though avoidable, flood.

During biology this week we had to dig through a bucket filled with dirt and samples from the back 40 and see what we find. We were looking for things such as seeds and bugs, and that is just what we found, however it was much more difficult to do with an overflow of water, turning our dirt to mud. Many times someone would be heard saying, “I found something!” then, after looking again, “Never mind, it’s just a rock” or something similar. When we finally did find something, however, it got very interesting, especially if our find was alive. 

Of the various living (or no longer living) organisms found in the bucket, we found two spiders, a slug, a dead slug, a pill bug, a millipede,   two worms, and some kind of larva. (Among other things that I cannot remember right now.)

We were also were looking for other biotic parts of the environment such as plants, and of that we found a germinated seed, four other seeds, and an acorn shell.

Not to mention the entire oak sapling that led us to this bucket of bugs!

This very tree now sits in my window, soaking up the nice sunset.

Environmental Factors

Environmental factors in an area always tend to affect everything else within that ecosystem in various different ways. Two of the ones I would probably want to experiment on would be sunlight and rain. Both largely affect their surroundings and would probably be easy to find ways of experimenting with them, most likely involving plants.

For an experiment on sunlight, I would probably begin with two small plants about equal size. I have an idea of which sides of the Emma campus that get sunrise and sunset, and therefore also which side has more sun time. I would start by taking a photo of either plant and putting one on the side that gets sunrise and the other on the side that gets sunset. I would take a photo of the plant each day and see what changes either has on the plant.

For the experiment on rain, I would have plants again. Both of them I would place in the same window so there would be the same amount of sunlight and air temperature. I would once again take pictures of both plants to show how they look when I begin, and each day I would add one amount of water to one plant and a different amount to the next, following that taking a photo of the plant. I would do this to record how much change there would be in the plant effected by how much water the plant gets between a dryer environment or a wetter, more rainy one.

The Ecosystem We Live In

Tuesday afternoon, my biology class went on a nature walk. We walked through the back of campus into a small woodsy area known as the Back 40. We were then asked what ecosystem we live in and why we know that. After having us gather different things from the woods and coming back to say what they were, we arrived at the conclusion that we live in a deciduous forest. 

Now, why we know that? The forest part is obvious. The area surrounding us is full of flowers, weeds, grass and trees, and if we did not have the school buildings in the area, the woods would be even bigger. Deciduous is defined as changing, or according to my laptop dictionary, "shedding its leaves". The woods in the Back 40 are filled with oak trees, otherwise known as deciduous trees. Therefore, the ecosystem of eastern New York is a deciduous forest.

The other question that was asked was what environmental factors were important to the composition and activity of the ecosystem. Some of the ones we thought of were rain, wind, temperature, and sunlight. All of these things affect the forest in different ways. The wind is what helps the plants to reproduce and the temperature, sunlight and rain affects how much or how well the plants grow. (For example, this spring when the snow kept coming and going just before summertime, all of the trees that produce flowers were strongly affected by the cold weather and became confused to what time of year it was, in result, they dropped their fruits just before the beginning of summer.)