Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi, I need help on my science project. I'm currently in 9th grade and my science fair question is What are the effects of different acidity levels on the survival rate of brine shrimp? Im really confused on how I will measure this and how im going do the data analysis. My project is going to have 7 beakers with equal amounts of brine shrimp and grow them to be on the adult stage then continue with the project. After this i will have a different ph level on each beaker and record observations. What do i put on my data? The amount of brine shrimp from the start till the end, like every three days count how many are alive with a magnifying glass???? thank you in advance!

Your experimental procedure sounds fine! Demonstrating the relationship between the acidity of the water and the number of brine shrimp still alive can be done by having different graphs for each beaker, and graphing the number of shrimp alive against the time. The slope of the graph will be negative (or 0 if no shrimp die, but that seems unlikely), and the steeper the slope is, the lower the survival rate is, as more shrimp will have died per unit time. This way, by comparing the slopes of the different graphs, you can deduce the effect of acidity on the survival rate. As for counting the number of brine shrimp using a magnifying glass, it probably won't be entirely accurate depending on how many you have, but it still should be good enough to accurately determine the relationship.

Feel free to ask more questions!

Hi, thank you so much for answering me. I have one other question to ask. I will be growing a lot of brine shrimp so how exactly can I measure which ones are dying and living? With a magnifying glass and place them on a petri dish??!

my project is about how different acidity levels affect brine shrimp's survival rate. I will be growing a lot of brine shrimp so how exactly can I measure which ones are dying and living? With a magnifying glass and place them on a petri dish??!

okay so now i have changed it. instead of the survival rate as the dependent variable, im going to change it to health of the brine shrimp?? is that okay? but i dont know how to put this experiment onto a data table or graph? my idea is somewhere of observing the way the brine shrimp act, look like, and the ones that fall to the bottom.

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