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

November 17 Behind the School

This was our first field trip with snow! The snow was crunchy, and it was sunny and cold. Brr! People were really cold! We learned that the ground was not frozen because the soil sampler was able to easily collect a soil sample. Our sample was really wet. After testing our soil for potassium, ph, phosphorus and nitrogen we compared it to our soil sample from Bartlett Cove. They were very similar. The only difference was that there was a little more phosphorus in Bartlett Cove. After looking at our results we decided to take another soil sample test from Bartlett Cove and behind the school.

One of us learned how to use the GPS and led us to all of our study sites behind the school. We all learned how to use compasses. We were told the directions by a classmate and we used our compasses to see if he was right. We tried to break a trail so that next time it would be easier to get to our sites.

School Site #2