Procedures

Procedure:

1.       Conduct this experiment in a flat area with a source of running water nearby, such as a creek or small river.

2.   Measure a 10 m by 10m square, with the body of water to the right. It should look similar to the diagram. 3. Starting where flag 4 is in the diagram, walk perpendicular to the stream. Measure the 3.33 meter mark, 6.66 meter marks and 10 meter mark, putting a flag at all the marks. The flags should resemble flag 2 and 3 in the diagram. The flags should be in a straight line, and distance between the 1st and 4th flag should be 10 meters. 3.      Repeat step 2 for all the sides of the square. The perimeter of the square should be completly marked with flags. 4.       At flag 2 in the diagram, head towards flag 14. Mark the 3.33 meter mark and 6.66 meter mark.   5. repeat step 4 for flags 5,9, and 3. The end result should be a 3 by 3 grid. 6. At this point, begin to take samples. This requires metal soil augers and 9 plastic baggies marked 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a, 8a and 9a. There will be multiple sample sets, so the “a” indicates that this is the first set taken. Go to the first plot. Take the soil auger that is 2.5 cm in diameter and go down 15 centimeters into the soil. Pull it back up and scrape the sampled soil into the plastic bag marked 1a. Continue to do this for all 9 plots

6.       Bring the samples back into a lab. They will be tested for both phosphorus and moisture levels, and the correlation between the two.

7. First do chemical testing for phosphorus in parts per million.

7.       Now test for moisture levels. To do this, first create 9 little aluminum foil boats that the soil will be put into.

8.       Mark each boat with the name of the sample that will be going into it.

9.       Empty the remainder of each soil sample into their designedly labeled boats.

10.   Get the mass of all samples, in grams, and record that number onto a table. This will be the “initial mass”.

11.   Now bake the soil samples in their aluminum foil boats for 24 hours at 107.22 degrees Celsius.

12.   After 24 hours, let the soil cool for an hour until it reaches room temperature.

13.   Weigh the soil samples again, still in their aluminum foil boats. Record this number, and calculate the percentage of the original sample that was water. You can find this out by subtracting the final mass from the initial mass, and then dividing this number by the initial mass.  This number will be a decimal, so to get it to be a percentage, multiply it by 100.

14.   Do both of these procedures- phosphorus testing and moisture level testing- for four trials, recording the data you procure. You will be analyzing this data by comparing the moisture levels in a certain location to the phosphorus levels. Repeat the procedure four times, on four different days.