Study Of Organisms

This experiment focused on the subject of Ecology which is the study of Organisms. This studies the relationship an organism has with other organisms and the relationship the organism has with their surrounding environment (Ecology, 2015). The creeks were a perfect example of an ecosystem in our study because they had different Abiotic and Biotic factors that we could look at to support our hypothesis and prediction. An ecosystem is an environment where abiotic (nonliving) and biotic (living) interact with each other(Brooker,Widmaier,Graham,Stiling, 2011).
The purpose of this experiment was so that our lab could set out to two different locations, Bear Creek and Cherry Creek, in order to explore each one, collect data from each site, and then …show more content…
The creek was so clear that you could see the rocks at the bottom of the creek. There were steps on the side leading out of the water to a little sitting area. On the other side of the creek was grass, mud, and small and large trees. Bear Creek is located in Lakewood, Colorado. Bear Creek was a little different because it had less of a city vibe than Cherry Creek. There was a path of dead grass that lead down to the creek. The creek itself was wide, murkier than Cherry Creek, and had a lot more rocks poking out of the water. On both sides of the creek were green grass, trees, and lots of bugs and wildlife. Once we reached both locations we set to work in our …show more content…
We were given two large, black cases that contained a certain number of chemistry kits that gave us directions on how to test everything from the amount of pH in the samples to the amount of ammonia in the riffle, pool, and midstream areas as well as the dissolved O2 levels. Our team started off by splitting into two teams; a group of two and a group of three. The team i was on, the small group of two, worked on testing the phosphate and nitrate in the riffle, pool, and midstream samples. Starting off with phosphate, we grabbed the phosphate chemistry kit and got to work following the directions in order to accurately test out the amount of phosphate in each sample. We used two of the machines, The V-2000 Spectrophotometers, that were included in one of the cases in order to test out each sample. We set up three test tubes, each with a sample of riffle, pool, and midstream and the chemical we needed to mix into them. We calibrated the machine to make sure it was set to the right test for what we were looking for and then zeroed them out with the test tube that came with the chemistry kit containing just water. Since we had two machines from our mini group we put in the samples of riffle and midstream so that they would test at the same time and the