Seneca Lake

Research Question: How is the depth and temperature of the water affect what organisms we’re going to find in the water?

Independent Variables: Where we test and how deep that water is

Dependent Variables: The temperature of the water and what kind of MacroInvertebrates are in the water.

Introduction: Seneca Lake is about 34.5 miles long. About 3.7 miles wide and has a depth of 630ft. So there could be a lot of different MacroInvertebrates in those 34.5 miles of water. The ecosystem has to be very diverse. There’s many different MacroInvertebrates in Seneca Lake. There’s crayfish, amphipod, stonefly larvae and mayfly larva.

    The temperature of the lake varies. The lake can get as warm as 72 degrees fahrenheit  and it can as cold as 38 degrees fahrenheit. So with that information, can we figure out if the depth at temperature of the water can impact what organisms we’ll find in the water? And does pH and Dissolved Oxygen levels play a role too? I’m very interested to see that part because in the experiments I have done coming up to this one, I’ve really never seen a correlation between pH/dissolved oxygen and what kind of organisms are in that area.  

Hypothesis: I think the deeper/warmer part of the lake will be the most diverse. Since the lake is so deep, I feel like there’s much more room for different MacroInvertebrates. Also, in similar experiments they have found that the population of the lake is much more diverse in the deeper water than the shallow water.

Method: 1.Find three different shallow water locations.

              2. Take the temperature of the 3 different locations.

              3.Find the pH values of all three locations

              4. Take a net and see what kind of MacroInvertebrates you get.

              5. Record your data.

              6. Find three different deep water locations.

              7.Repeat steps 1-5 for the deep water locations.

 Question: How will factors like depth, temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen play a role in what kind of MacroInvertebrates we find?

Citations:  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0075951108000674

               

                 

 "Seneca Lake." - A Guide to Hotels, Bed and Breakfasts in the Finger Lakes. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

How I'm Affecting the Carbon Cycle

1.) Breathing out Carbon Dioxide

2.) Using electricity

3.) Using paper products

4.) Using plastic products

5.) Excersing   

Biome

    The Chimpanzee’s biome is a tropical rainforrest. Tropical rainforrests have a very wet climate. They usually get about 100 inches of rain a year. And the temperature usually doesn’t get higher than 93 degrees or fall below 68 degrees. They actually cover about 6% of earth’s surface and produce 40% of earth’s oxygen. Some specific plants that resides in the rain forrest are vines and and Victorian water lily. There are no really dominating forces in a rain forests. Like the species who live there for the most part get along okay. Some other animals you can find in a rainforest are Toucans, Spider Monkies, and Sloths. You can find many examples of Flaura in the rainforest. One is the Orchids. They're flowering plants that attract bugs to pollinate them with their bright colors. They grow upwards like vines and need to be supported. Another example is Bengal Bamboo. These things are huge. They can grow up to 80 feet tall and they're really important to the rainforest. They prevent floods during large rain storms but sucking up the water. Another example of Flaura are Epiphytes. These are things like Cacti, Lichens, and ferns. They usually grow in tall trees so they can get massive sunlight.

  There's many examples of Fauna in the Rainforest. One is the Poison Dart Frog. Those are frogs with enough poison on their back to kill 10 grown men. Another example is the Margay, the Margay is a small cat that's 3 feet long who eat small mammals like squirrels. One more example is the Collard Anteater. They have a really long tongue which it uses to catch ants to eats. The tongue is useful because it allows them to get into cracks that other animals couldn't get into to catch its's prey. 

  One major environmental problem of the rainforest is that logging companies cut down the trees for timber to make flooring and furniture and such. When you cut down the trees you disrupt the lives of the species in that tree. So what they do now is they selectively cut trees rather than just clearing out a whole space and it saves millions of trees each year.

"What Is a Rainforest?" What Is a Rainforest? Web. 15 Oct. 2015

    Furnace Brook Lab Report

Introduction: Rivers are very important to an ecosystem. It can be a home to many organisms and a source of water for the animals on land. You can learn a lot by what organisms you find in the river. You can figure out if it’s polluted. You can figure out the depth of the water. You can figure out a ton. In this lab we try to find out even more by doing various tests.

Research Question: What will be different in the different locations of the river?

Hypothesis:  I believe we’ll find different things in different places.

Variable Identification:

Controlled Variable	Method to control the variable
Stream Location on the stream Practice Golf Ball	Used the same stream for both locations Used two separate locations Used the same golf ball in all trials.

Experimental Setup :  My partners and I went out test site and performed many different experiments. For our first day out, we were specifically looking for what kind of life is in the water. We also tested the pH value in the water and etc. The second day we tested pH and such but we also tested the flow velocity.

Procedure:

1. Find the location
2. Find the temp.
3. Measure the pH of the water
4. Measure the turbidity of the water
5. Place the net into the water
6. Place a rock at the bottom of the net to hold it down
7. Kick up dirt and rocks from the stream to reveal the macroinvertebrates
8. Take the net out and emptied the macroinvertebrates into a pan for counting
9. Count the number of each organism
10. Found a second location
11. Find the first location
12. Measure out 40 feet
13. Measure the depth at the start of the 40 feet 6 times and then averaged
14. Drop the practice golf ball at the start line as the timer began timing
15. Let the ball flow down stream to the finish line
16. Catch the ball at the end and stopped timer
17. Record information

Data:

Location 1

N 43°00'59.4”

Location 2

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Day 1)	Temperature	Dissolved Oxygen	pH	Turbidity
Location 1	18	0	7	0
Location 2	18	0	7	0

(Day 2)	Temperature	Dissolved Oxygen	pH	Turbidity
Location 1	10	0	7	0
Location 2	10	0	7	0

	Location 1 (feet)	Location 2 (feet)
Depth 1	0.17	0.17
Depth 2	0.25	0.21
Depth 3	0.33	0.42
Depth 4	0.42	0.25
Depth 5	0.21	0.5
Depth 6	0.33	0.5
Average	0.29	0.34

	Location 1 (seconds)	Location 2 (seconds)
Trial 1	22.28	20.7
Trial 2	17.78	26.35
Trial 3	23.43	24.38
Trial 4	24.38	29.16
Trial 5	24.32	25.83
Average	22.44	25.28

Results :

Day 1)	Temperature	Dissolved Oxygen	pH	Turbidity
Location 1	18	0	7	0
Location 2	18	0	7	0

(Day 2)	Temperature	Dissolved Oxygen	pH	Turbidity
Location 1	10	0	7	0
Location 2	10	0	7	0

	Location 1 (feet)	Location 2 (feet)
Depth 1	0.17	0.17
Depth 2	0.25	0.21
Depth 3	0.33	0.42
Depth 4	0.42	0.25
Depth 5	0.21	0.5
Depth 6	0.33	0.5
Average	0.29	0.34

	Location 1 (seconds)	Location 2 (seconds)
Trial 1	22.28	20.7
Trial 2	17.78	26.35
Trial 3	23.43	24.38
Trial 4	24.38	29.16
Trial 5	24.32	25.83
Average	22.44	25.28

Results :

	Velocity (feet/second)
Location 1	0.56
Location 2	0.63

Discussion: There's a ton of different kinds of life in the Elmwood Park water. There's certain factors that contribute to what lives where. Some of those factors are depth of water, pH levels and oxygen levels.

Evaluation:  I think a way that we could make this experiment better by not waiting like 4 days in between trials. I think there may of been some human error also but there isn’t much you can do about that.

Conclusion:  As you can see by our tables and graphs, the pH and Dissolved Oxygen and Turbidity levels didn’t really vary. But the organisms we found were very diverse. We found a much greater amount of Scuds and Waterbugs on the 2nd trial. So the organisms varied.

References - "Chimpanzee Blog." Chimpanzee Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015.