Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello. I am a 9th grade student that is currently participating in Science Fair. I submitted a proposal to my teacher on the project: From Trash to Gas: Biomass Energy. He seems to think that it is a good project. One of the reasons that I wanted to do this project was because the materials were readily available. However, I live in Bowie, Maryland, and do not know how to procure fresh manure. I don't really know of any local farms. Should I try to find a Maryland farm that could give me manure? I am very unsure. I need to have the materials soon. Is composted manure OK, and if not, how should I go about acquiring fresh cow manure? As you can see, I have many questions. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.


https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p027.shtml

Hi,

The first thing I would do is just a quick google search for nearby farms. If there are any in the area that aren't too far away, I would just call and ask if they have fresh manure you could use for your project. I'm not sure if they would charge you or not for it, but hopefully not. If there aren't any farms nearby then we can explore other options.

Hope this helps!
Hannah

Hey. Thanks for responding. I have looked around a lot on Google and have made several phone calls. So far, none of them have responded. I'm not sure I want to drive to a farm that is several miles away without confirmation that I could get what I went for. And while I'm asking, how could I transport it back home? It is excrement after all.

I definitely agree that you shouldn't drive out there until you have confirmation that they can give you the fresh manure. However, if they can, I certainly hope that they can bag it up for you! I don't think they'd expect you to take care of that on your own (after all, you aren't the farmer). But that is something to ask about if you hear back from someone. I would wait a little longer to see if anyone gets back to you (it is the weekend after all).

Hannah

The problem is that I called over a week ago, and never got a response. I left voicemails, which I'm not sure actually reached them. The farms in Maryland aren't easy to contact. I do know of one environmental center that I went to in 5th grade, called Hard Bargain Farm, and I know they had cows. But they're at least an hour away, and their office never returned my call. It may be a viable option, but I'm really not sure.


http://fergusonfoundation.org/hard-bargain-farm/
http://tinyurl.com/hardbargainfarmmap

Hmm, Ok. It may be time to think of alternative options then.

I quickly looked through the materials and protocol for the experiment you plan to do and it seems to be important that the manure you have is fresh enough. Here's what it says about the manure:

"It is very important to use fresh cow manure in this project. Figure 1 shows a picture of fresh cow manure (probably less than 1 day old). Fresh manure is usually very moist, very soft, dark green/brown in coloring, and very smelly! Manure that is a few days old may still work, but for best results use manure that is as fresh as possible."
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

Unfortunately, I think if you can't get your hands on to some fresh manure that you will likely need to pick a different project to do. I'm not sure if this is helpful since you've already done a google search but in the materials section of this experiment they suggest using this link to locate local farms. http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-finder/

Let me know if you need any more help!

Hannah