Plankton Lab! :D

Introduction: We all know the math behind plankton, and we also know the different kinds of plankton. So I think its safe to say we can go out to the fields! We want to know the diversity of plankton, to do this we need plankton nets and many other devices.

Question: How many different types of plankton will be in our samples?

Hypothesis: I believe there will be 20-30 types of plankton

Prediction: If there are 30 plankton then there will be allot in our sample.

Procedure: We will need to put our nets in the water for 3 min, we will then take our plankton samples and examine them with a microscope. We will write down our findings. when we observe our plankton we need a pippet to suck them up. put them in a petri dish where you can observe them. It may be easier to observe them if you put that deteriate stuff in it. After you have done that observe the plankton my the digital or regular microscopes. i have found it easier with the digital ones

Materials: plankton net, ID book, microscope, microscope slides, cover slips, pippets,

Data:

salinity- 0

temperature- 25 degrees

tide- N/A

wind action- calm

cloud coverage- average

turbidity- 0

amount of plankton in sample- at least 10 to 20 different species

Conclusion: My hypothesis states that there is at least 20 to 30 different kinds of plankton in our sample. I have found there to be at least 10 to 20 different species of plankton in the sample. This shows us that our Hypothesis is incorrect. Even though our hypothesis minimum amount of plankton is 20 and our data's maximum amount is 20 doesn't mean its correct. the numbers are just to far off for my Hypothesis to be correct. if the data showed 15 to 25 i might accept it.

beach profile and current map

Beach Profiling

Over this week me and my class have learned about beach profiling and how to do so. What we do in beach profiling is we take measurements across the beach to find there slope. this will help us give a part of a beach its own profile. We are using many tools such as a GPS (to pin point where our maker is), a compass (to show what direction our beach is heading), and rise and run sticks (glorified polls with measurements on them). these tool all together will help us give a part of a beach its own profiles.

now many beaches have different profiles. most beaches will slope down all the way to the foot of the beach (a little dip in the water that marks the end of a beach). some may have a big drop off at the beginning of the beach then be smooth all the to the foot. other parts of the beach will slope up at first then slope down. there are many factors to determine the profile of a beach. High tides can be a factor, the tides can move sand up and drag sand back down. some beaches the tides are so extreme that they leave little drop offs of sand because of the factor of the tides taking sand. wind is a contributing factor in beach profiling. wind can carry sand across a beach and place it somewhere else. sometimes we might not want the wind to take our sand somewhere else, so what we do is put up fences that let wind though but not the sand. These fences help create dunes. And natural elements such as big rocks or trees can determine the beginning and end of a beach by collecting sand that may get picked up by wind.

here are the procedures that we took to profile a beach:

1. We will first find a point on the top of a dune and mark it. (its important that this spot will last and not get covered up by sand)

2. Now we get one member to take a transect line from our marker to the foot of the beach

3. We now will have two people holding the rise and run sticks across the transect line. (the run stick should be at the bottom of the slope.)

4. Also when you move down the transect you will put the rise stick where the run stick was last.

5. Make sure you have another person collecting the measurements that you get from the rise and run stick.

6. before you start measuring make sure to get the longitude and latitude from a GPS.

7. Also get the direction the beach is pointing from a compass.

8. When you are done head back to the school.

beach lab.

big beach

Introduction:

since the beginging of time there has been beaches, little did we know beaches have two origens. the thwo origens that make up all the beaches in the world is Biogenic (sand coming from living organisms) and detrital, (sand coming from rocks). now one way to find what beach is biogenic and what is not is to add vinigar to a sample of sand. if the sand is biogenic there will be a chemical reaction, the sand will bubble up and crackle, if the sand is detrital there will be no reaction.

Question:

is the beach on suger beach, black sand beach and kam1 beach biogenic or detrital?

Hypothesis:

I believe that black sand beach is detrital and both surgar and kam 1 beach is biogenic.

Kam 1 beach

Prediction:

If black sand beach is detrital then it will not react with the vinigar. If sugar and kam 1 beach are biogenic then they will react with the vinigar.

Materials:

gaggles

pipets

beaker

viniger

your brain

Procedure: First we will take the vans to the beaches that we want to test. Next we will collect the sand samples and make observations on the beach. After we our done with our observations we will go back to the school. we will pour 20 drops of viniger into a sample the sand. we will watch for any chemicle reation and make our data analiysis.

Data:

we have conducted our lab and the results are in!

surgar beach: the sand had a major reaction with the viniger with lost of crackling and bubbling.

Kam 1: the sand reacted with bubbling and crakling but not as much as surger beach.

Black sand: there was hardly any reaction.

conclusion:

Our hypothesis sugjested that the black sand beach was detrital and both kam 1 and sugar beach was biogenic. our data proves that my hypothesis was 100% correct. possible sources of error is mixing the sands up.

black sand beach

beach observations

On 4/11/11 me and my class traveled to many beaches so we can get data for our lab. the class was split up in two (kind of...) my group was assigned to go to sugar beach, Kam 1 beach and keawakapu beach. here are my observation on these three beaches.

Sugar Beach:

sugar beach is a white sand beach but a bit darker tint than Kam 1 or keawakapu, this leads me to think that it may be part detrital. there is a seawall to the left of the beach but i dont think that would be the resion for the darker sand tint. i know that sugar beach is also used for kanuing, the every day use of the kanues may erode the beach.

Kam 1:

kam 1 is a white sand beach. i think it is completely biogenic because the fact there is no lava rock near the beach, also the beach is white as snow. i don't know of any coral reefs near by (although there may be some), the sand might come from large deposits of sand in the ocean carried from currents.

Keawakapu:

keawakapu is one of my favorite beaches on maui. its very calm and safe to the public. although not the most appealing to those who like to surf. it is a white sand beach, if you have ever been in the water there you know where that sand comes from. to the right you see a bunch of rocks, under the water is a large coral reef. alot of the reef near the beach is dead so its obvious where some of the sand comes from. if you go farther out you can see the coral is alive with many fish hanging around. some of the corral might also come from fish poop.

whale observation lab

Introduction: over to past 10 years thousands of humpback whales have been hunted for the resources. japan and Norway alone kill over 1500 whales every year. because whaling is outlawed i'm wondering if the amount of whale population has gone up or down.

Question: is there more whales at the beginning of the session or at the end of the session?

Hypothesis: the amount of whales killed might still be high today so there would be more whales at the beginning of the session.

Prediction: If the number of whales hunted go up then there will be more whales at the beginning of the session.

Materials:

pen/ pencil

data sheet

clinometer

Procedure:

you will need to find your elevation from sea water with a GPS.

then you will take your clinometer and aim at a whale. the angle of the clinometer will help judge the distance from the whale. you will take to angle and put it into a formula: D= elevation X tan (angle.

Data: at the beginning of the session i spotted an estimated 5 whales from shore. at the end of the session i was not able to go to the whale watch, but friends let me use the data they found. it turns out that they spotted an estimated 7+ whales.

Conclusion: i hypothesized that there would be more whales at the end of the session, but my data clearly shows that there where more whales at the end of the session then at the end of the session. there may have been some sources of error. when we where spotting whales at shore we might have miss counted the amount of whales, and since i was never at the whale watch i dont know the exact amount for sure.

over all it was a great time of good whale watching fun. although i wasnt able to go to the whale whatch its self i dont think it hinders my ability to understand the whales. after all we will in hawaii.

This is my wanted poster for advanced research topics (or science). This poster fetures two pictures of marie curie, a picture of what she discovered and a brief paragraph of her work. it took about 1 hour to make with a few edits. This poster will be demostrated by Stephen Smith on wedensday or on the following monday.

clinometer

the clinometer is very simple to use! all you need to do is follow these simple steps!

1. find your elevation via the gps.

2. find an object.

3. look at that object through the hole in your clinometer.

4. have a friend note down the angle that the string is pointing to.

5. now plug the information you have into this formula: D= elevation x Tan( angle

6. now plug this into your calculator and BLAMO! you have your distance!

whale watch at McGregor's point

the purpose of the whale watch for me was to see how many whales i can spot, then at the end of the year compare it to the number of whales i see at McGregor's. So is there more whale at the beginning of the year or at the end of the year? if whaling has gone down id think there would be more whales at the end of the year because at that time all the whales would be done traveling. the observation at McGregor's point was great. i think i saw 4 different pods, but i only recorded 2. it was very hard to see them because they where way of in the water, also the sun reflecting of the water was making it hard to see. all i saw was water spouts, no breaching sadly.

in this lab there are 9 marine phyla. these are porifera, cnidoria, mollussca, arthropoda, echino, nemotoda, prutyha, annelida and crustations. we will go to the tide pools and observe and count as many marine phyla as we can. we will use a quadrate and a transect line and count up all the creatures that are in our quadrate. we will count each creature and name them by there phyla.

are research question is which marine phyla are present at the tide pools and which one is there the most of. our hypothesis is the mollusk will be the most of any phyla at the tide pools. so we found out our hypothesis was true, but there may have been sources of error such as, re counting specimen, rising tides, creatures moving ect.

it was great fun geting out there in the pools. we got to see some amazing creatures like a puffer fish! it was also a good learning experience. it kept us thinking and i don't think anyone got bored.