January 5, 2012 Behind the School

On January 5, 2012, we went on a field trip behind the school. It was a sunny, but cold day. We went into two groups and each group went to a different site. The soil wasn't frozen at all! It was a huge shock to us.We found a dead worm in the soil sample. The snow depth at the second site was 11 inches, The first site was ten and a half inches. In a big group we talked about how snow insulates the plants under the snow. We left some plants uncovered so we could see what the difference was next time we went on a field trip. We think that the ones that are exposed to cold air might die. We had so much fun!

Questions and Hypotheses

After the long process of making and editing our questions we have finally moved on to our hypotheses! We had to make changes to the questions three times before writing our hypotheses. The questions and hypothesis are written below.


Question1: What do non-woody plants do in the winter? Do they die and turn brown or stay alive and stay green?

Hypothesis1: We think that many plants will be dead and brown, because non-woody plants don’t have as long as a life span as woody plants and don’t live as long in freezing temperatures.


Question 2: What soil contains more nutrients? Disturbed soil or non disturbed soil?

Hypothesis 2: We think that disturbed soil has less nutrients than non-disturbed soil when it gets moved. We think that some disturbed soil has more nutrients than non-disturbed soil, because things are added to it like compost, seaweed and miracle grow.


Question3: Are there different nutrient amounts in the soil in conifer-dominated, marshes, meadows, and deciduous thicket plant communities?

Hypothesis3: Yes, we do think that there are different nutrient amounts in conifer-dominated, marshes, meadows, and deciduous thickets, because of the diverse plants. The different plants that are in the distinct plant communities probably need different nutrient amounts concluding that there are different nutrient amounts in the various plant communities.

Behind the School December, 8th 2011

It was VERY cold and rainy! We normally use a G.P.S, but instead someone lead us to the study sites. We had someone pound in the stakes. Our data collection was easier because we did not have to collect all the data. We return to the school sites every other a week. We couldn’t get the depth of snow because there was only a little bit. A lot of the non-woody plants were alive but some of them were all ready dead.

What Makes A Good Scientific Question?

These are our new and improved questions. A couple weeks ago we went through and made our yearlong study questions more specific. Now we can understand our questions better. We are not done with question #4 yet. What do you think?
New Questions
1. What do non- woody plants do in the Winter? Do they die brown or stay alive green?

2. What soil contains more nutrients? disturbed soil or non-disturbed soil?

3. What types of different soil are in conifer, marshes, and meadows?

4. Do some plants need disturbed soil or non-disturbed soil?

Srawberry Field Dec.1, 2011

On December 1,2011,we went to the strawberry field to collect data. We learned the soil wasn’t frozen. We had to dig out our study site. Jack found a gummyworm in the dirt! Then we walked to Miss. Jessie’s old garden. We put up stakes for strawberries.

Animal Tracks

Soil Test