Monday, March 25, 2013

Wetland Sampling Sites


The scientific method is defined as, “The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.”


We have already formulated our hypothesis and have submitted it to GSA.  We have read several articles that have proven our hypothesis.  We are curious to see if we will get the same results dealing with a much smaller area that we can then apply to a larger scale.  Currently we are in the process of experimenting in order to demonstrate the truth or falseness of our hypothesis about the Municipal Stadium Wetland. 



Each pin in this photo represents a place that we have
taken a water sample.

Our question about this wetland is whether or not it will act as a filter to Buck Creek by removing some nutrients that are overloaded by agricultural inputs. We chose this question by reading other scientific articles about this topic.  In the articles we read we found out that the nitrogen to silica ratio is very important to sustaining aquatic life.  We believe that this ratio will become more balanced once it has had time to filter through the wetland before flowing back into Buck Creek.  In order to test whether or not our hypothesis is true we have taken many water samples in different places throughout the wetland.  By spacing the samples out we hope to get a better idea about how the ratio of nitrogen to silica, as well as other nutrients, react as it passes through different areas of the wetland.  We took many samples at the inlet, outlet, and middle areas of the wetland to see if there was a change relative to location.  We hope that our local data will be able to contribute to the big picture.  Then we may be able to see how smaller tributaries can affect larger rivers, and ultimately the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico.     

By, Lexi Crisp and TJ Mobley 


1 comment:

  1. It isn't clear what the hypothesis is here that we have formulated. This does a good job of detailing a guiding question that helped us to formulate our hypothesis. We hypothesized that DSi:DIN ratios are altered as water travels from Buck Creek into the wetland and that both DSi & DIN would be reduced (based on literature). However, the scale of our study is smaller than previous studies. We helped show that this hypothesis is true on distinct scales.

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