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.