Procedure

You will need:

  • safety gloves
  • safety googles
  • at least 60 small ziploc bags (sandwich size)
  • soil auger
  • permanent marker
  • 12 flags (to mark the sites where the samples are taken)
  • soil testing kit (capable of testing for Phosphorus)
  • alcohol or other disinfectant
  • tape measure (at least 20 meters in length)
  • notebook
  • pen or pencil
  • paper towels or napkins
  • table or testing space

*This expirement requires access to a stream with exposed bedrock.

 

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Procedure:
1. Gather the tape measure, ziploc bags, permanent marker, flags, and soil auger.
2. Label the bags (numbers 1-12) with your marker.
3. Go to the work site.

4. Go to the highest point on the stream, your first of 6 stops.
5. Mark the stop with a flag on one bank of the stream.

6. With the metal soil auger, take a 15 x 2.5 cm soil sample (the first line on the auger) from one side of the stream at stop one.
 
7. Put the soil sample in the numbered bag that corresponds to that number sample (if its from sample one then put it in bag one.)
8. Go to the opposite side of the stream and repeat steps 5-8.
9. With the tape measure, have a person from your group hold the end, as another person carries the tape measure 10 meters further downstream.

10. When the tape measure gets to 10 meters, stop.
11. Repeat steps 5-8 at stop 2.
12. Repeat steps 9-11, until you've gotten through stop 6. After stop 6, this is what your plots should look like:
13. Put on goggles and gloves.

14. Use a soil chemical test kit to test all of your soil samples from that day at about the same time for phosphorus in parts per million.
-we used the Lamotte Combination Soil Outfit Model STH-14
   
15. Write down results in notebook with a pen or pencil.
16. Spray table with alcohol or another disinfectant and wipe down lab station with paper towels.

17. Phosphorous Test Complete!
18. Repeat  the gathering and testing of samples on four more days.