Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Our project will investiagte how acid rain will effect aquatic plants. We will use 3 aquatic plants to investigate. To make acid we will mix lemon juice and vinegar. Any help here?

Hi OneTwo,

You have an interesting project idea here. Take a look at this Science Buddies project to help you get started: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml

You can modify this project to work with aquatic plants.

I hope this helps. Please post again (in this same thread) if you have more questions.

Heather

Question: Which ecosystem will acid rains have a greater effect on?

Hypothesis: If the same amount of acidic rain poured into both ecosystem experiments the acid rain will have a greater harmful effect on forest ecosystem

Procedure:
1. Rinse each container with distilled water, and dry them off with a paper towel. Take a strip of tape and label the container with the title of its ecosystem and what organism is present with a permanent marker.
2. Using the measuring cup, add 1000 mL (4cups) of water to the containers. Use distilled bottled water. Tap water may contain chemicals, like chorine or chloramine, which could harm the aquatic life and ruin your experiment.
3. Use the pH test strips to check the pH of the water in the containers. Record your result.
4. Take the lemon juice and vinegar and mix it up. Using half a cup (1/2) of your homemade acid rain, pour it into each container.
5. Evenly distribute the organisms into their containers.
6. Observe each container and write down your observation. Observe the container for 3 whole days.

Thanks, I looked at the site you gave me, It helped alot. But, instead of copying this I did a little change into the idea. I will investigate acidic rain on 2 ecosystems. Forest ecosystem and Aquatic ecosystem. We will by plants and insects to do our experiment. Since im in an academic course do you think my hypothesis and question including with the procedure written well and efficent or should I be more precise?

Hi OneTwo,

I like that you plan to make the idea your own!

OneTwo wrote:Since im in an academic course do you think my hypothesis and question including with the procedure written well and efficent or should I be more precise?

Overall, you did a good job describing your experimental design. Here are a few things to think about:

(1) What is your dependent variable? In other words, what are you going to measure to see how your acid rain affects your ecosystem? In the Science Buddies project, you would measure the number of living things remaining. Was that your plan for this project? If so, make sure to include that in your procedure.

(2) In any experiment, it is good to have replicates. Were you planning to have more than one ecosystem in each group?

(3) Since you are looking at two different kinds of ecosystems, it is possible that you may be better at caring for one than the other. I recommend that you have control groups for both ecosystems, in which you use regular water (no acid rain), to ensure that any negative effects you measure are in fact from the acid rain and not from some other issue that you did not foresee.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions, and please post with an update as your project progresses!

Heather