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11th Grade: Biology Rivers Project

 

Outcomes

  • Investigate the levels of fecal coliform to draw conclusions on the health of a river habitat.
  • Investigate the diversity of the three types of macroinvertebrates to draw conclusions on the health of a river habitat.
  • Investigate the species richness of native and invasive plants to draw conclusions on the health of a river habitat.
 

Overview

This year the YWLCS biology students learned about the characteristics of living things, photosynthesis, biomolecules, cells, biodiversity, and scientific inquiry skills.   Throughout the months of April and May the biology students have been able to apply their content and scientific inquiry knowledge to conduct a River Research Project.  The driving question of their research was “How are humans impacting the biodiversity of the Chicago wilderness?”  The biology students worked in teams of three to four students to conduct their research.  As a team, the students performed background research on organisms, chemical factors, and physical factors to create a problem question.  The organisms the students were able to research, included, fecal coliform, plants, or macroinvertebrates.  There were many different chemical and physical factors the students were able to research, such as, dissolved oxygen, phosphates, and nitrates. Students designed their own procedures to collect data either at the Chicago River, Calumet River, and/or Flatwood Lake.  Students analyzed their data to draw conclusions about the water quality and the biodiversity of the river habitats.  Lastly, the students designed and prepared science fair poster presentations, which you will be viewing and judging today.  Enjoy!

 

Suggested Questions

General

1.  Define biodiversity.  Explain how your project is connected to the driving question “How are humans  impacting the biodiversity of the Chicago wilderness?” 

2. Explain the classification of your organism based on the Three-Domain System (Archaea, Bacteria, Eukarya) and/or the Six Kingdom System (Euacteria, Archeabacteria, Protist, Fungi, Plants, Animals)

Macroinvertebrates

  1. Describe any important qualitative or quantitative observations made about the macroinvertebrate collection area that are important and relevant to problem question.
  2. Explain thecharacteristics of the four pollution tolerance groups of macroinvertebrates
      • pollution intolerant
      • moderately intolerant to pollution
      • fairly tolerant to pollution
      • very tolerant to pollution
  3. Which and how many macroinvertebrates did you collect from the pollution intolerant group? moderately intolerant to pollution group?  fairly tolerant to pollution group? very tolerant to pollution group?
  4. What was the purpose of completing the Pollution-Tolerance Index and Diversity Index?  What were the results of these indices? 
  5. According to scientific research, scientists have determined that macroinvertebrates are bioindicators.  Define bioindicator and explain how your macroinvertebrate data can be used to indicate the health of the water.
  6. Compare your chemical and/or physical data graph to your macroinvertebrate data graph to determine if there is a correlation (if any). Explain.
  7. Compare your fecal coliform data graph to your macroinvertebrate data graph to determine if there is a correlation (if any). Explain.

Fecal Coliform

  1. What are fecal coliform?
  2. How do they affect the water quality of the river?
  3. How does fecal coliform enter the river?
  4. How many fecal coliform colonies did you find in each water sample?  What was the average (mean)?  How did this compare to the Water Quality Standards of fecal coliform?

Water-Quality Standards

Category

Fecal Coliform per 100 mL of Water

Drinking water

0 colonies

Swimming

200 colonies

Boating

1000 colonies

Treated Sewage

200 colonies
  1. Describe any important qualitative or quantitative observations made about the fecal coliform water samples sites that are important and relevant to problem question. 
  2. According to scientific research, scientists have determined that fecal coliform are bioindicators.  Define bioindicators and explain how your fecal coliform data can be used to indicate the health of the water.
  3. Compare your chemical and/or physical data graph to your fecal coliform data graph to determine if there is a correlation (if any). Explain.

Plants

  1. Define native plants.
  2. Define invasive plants.
  3. Describe any important qualitative or quantitative observations made about this quadrant that is important and relevant to problem question. 
  4. How many plants did you count in the quadrant?  What was the average (mean)?
  5. What is the species richness (total number of different species present)? What was the average (mean)?
  6. What was the most common plant in the quadrant?
  7. What plants were you able to identify?  Explain any interesting facts about these plants.
  8. Compare your chemical and/or physical data graph to your plant data graph to determine if there is a correlation (if any). Explain.

Scientific Inquiry Questions

  1. What problem question did you investigate?
  2. Why is this problem question important or relevant to environmental issues or other real-world issues?
  3. Before going on the River Trip what was your hypothesis (the prediction of what you think will happen, stated in a way that can be tested by doing an investigation)?  Why did you choose this hypothesis?
  4. Briefly describe the location of your research site(s).
  5. Briefly describe the data you collected to address this question.
  6. Summarize your data displayed in the table and graph.  What is your interpretation of these results?
  7. Explain how your conclusions are based on the data you collected at the river.
  8. Explain if your results support or contradict your hypothesis. 
  9. If you looked into the research that others may have done on this subjects (fellow YWLCS classmates), how do your results agree or disagree with what they found?
  10. If you were to repeat the research, what would you change in order to learn more about the question you studied?  (Did you come up with any questions you couldn’t answer using your data?  Can you think of a research project that would help to answer these questions?)
  11. What might you change to improve your research design?

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