We used pond water from Goodhope pond, Sprague pond and Christina's pond. We prepared 12 biospheres, Three biospheres per pond along with 3 control biospheres. We used soil and gravel as the base of our biosphere. We filled the biosphere with 2.3L of our respective pond water. For our control we filled the biosphere with 0.2L of nutrient water + 2.1L of tap water. We also placed a mermaid plant in each of our biosphere along with 5 Daphnia.
We ran into a few complications when we went to collect our pond water. When we were collecting the pond water from Lynnwood’s Mini Park, we were met by an army of geese. It seemed like the geese did not want us to collect their precious pond water, they kept giving us the look of death through their tiny beady black eyes. At first we were terrified to approach them because they outnumbered us. There was only 4 of us against at least 20 of them even though they might have been slightly shorter than us, their necks can stretch pretty far and their bite is definitely going to be worse than their quack! But Thinh ignored their wrathful gaze and just plowed ahead to collect our precious pond water. Thankfully the geese ignored him and did not attempt to disturb him although they kept glaring at him and they also made sure that he knew that they were extremely dissatisfied at his disturbance.
After the attack of the geese, we made our way to our second pond which was Goodhope pond before we headed back to the lab. Over there we ran into 2 problems. The first problem was that the water was too shallow. We couldn't collect enough water to fill our gallon jugs. After much debating we decided that the only thing we can do is to actually enter the pond. So as we start figuring out how to get deeper in the water, an officer from the Lynnwood police department came up behind us, you know because we didn’t look sketchy at all. Judging by his confused face he probably thought we were doing something much worse than collecting pond water, but he reminded us we probably shouldn’t drink the water. We reminded him we were actually there to test the grossness of the water. He lingered a little before leaving when we realized we definitely should have gotten a picture with the cop to show you guys. After that it was back to the lab to see what was in our water.
We set up three identical for each the pond waters and a control in lab. With each of the pond waters, we also had to check every detail of the water like pH, oxygen dissolved, and obviously what organisms might be living in it. There was some pretty interesting results, but as Thinh likes to say, it’s a surprise.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI think its hilarious that a cop showed up when you were collecting the water!
Its really cool that you are making biospheres, and I'm amazed that you were able to count an equal five Daphnia into each one of them! Also, how did you test the pH and dissolved oxygen of the pond water?
Really fun post, great job!
Hey! I think you guys have a good experimental setup. It's going to be really interesting to the see how organisms differ between the pond locations. I understand that you tested three ponds, although why are there three controls (do they have different things in each)? I was also wondering if you are going to be tying in pH and oxygen content with pollution when you mean testing cleanliness. I think that's an amazing idea, because it will give the class an idea of how we might be damaging our local ecosystems. Great job!
ReplyDeleteHey guys, great ecology project. It'll be interesting to see what the results are. From casual observation of the group ecospheres, daphnia survivability does vary. My group had explosive growth, yet another group with only a slight difference in the set up had their daphnia go extinct. We could definitely use your results to better our own ecoshperes! Also, my group was there when the cops showed up at Pine Ridge. It was great :)
ReplyDeleteHey guys
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea for an ecology research project! That's not something I think I ever would have thought of. It was really interesting to watch everything grow and change, and to see what the impact of the water contents from each pond was, as well as what organisms were able to survive under what conditions. In testing cleanliness it should really highlight the extent of the impact pollution and development by humans has on the surrounding area. It's also hilarious that a police officer showed up! Talk about awkward! Oh the things we do in the name of science... Thanks for sharing guys :)
This is a cool research project. Many other groups have something like this in the the ecospheres but with your results we can finally figure out what the best combination really is. Our groups daphnia did really well and we had hundreds. Whats funny is I was at the same park as you guys when the cop showed up doing something for my group so I saw him as well. Thanks for sharing!
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