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Experiment

 

 

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Question: How do Diatoms react to variable amounts of light?                                                                              

 

Hypothesis: The Diatoms will reproduce best in the natural light. This is simply stating our common knowledge, per example we still do not know how well they would do in all light for 24 hours and we do know that without light, plants can not grow well.   

 

Experiment: We will have 8 flasks, each containing Diatoms: Ondontella Longicruris. 2 of these flasks will be under a light for 24 hours for a period of ten days. 2 more will be blocked out from any light source possible for 24 hours for a period of ten days. 3 others were put beside a window to receive natural light. The last one will be kept under laboratory conditions as our control, there for receiving 14 hours light and 10 hours dark.

 

Materials:

8 flasks/containers

Diatoms --> Ondontella Longicruris

Light source                                                                                                                                                             

Method of controlling temperature                                        

     For counting:

     A Spectrometre20D

Procedure:

  1. Setup flasks with water, nutrients and Diatoms
  2. Make sure all flasks have equal temperature
  3. Place each flask in there spots with variable amounts of light.
  4. Record observations on physical character
  5. Count number of Phytoplankton on the Spectrometer20D
  6. Graph results!

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Temperature Records

 

Light for 24 hours

Day

˚C of the morning 8:15

˚C of the evening 5:00

1 tues 6/07

 

15.4˚C

2 wens 7th

15.3˚C

15.5˚C

3 thurs 8th

15.4˚C

15.9˚C

4 fri      9th

15.5˚C

15.7˚C

5 sat   10th

15.8˚C

16.3˚C

6 sun  11th

15.9˚C

15.8˚C

7 mon 12th

15.5˚C

15.6˚C

8 tues 13th

15.4˚C

14.8˚C

9 wens14th

14.9˚C

14.3˚C

10 thurs 15th

15.3˚C

15.2˚C

11 fri    16th

15.5˚C

 

 

No light for 24 hours

Day

˚C of the morning

˚C of the evening

1 tues 6/07

 

14.9˚C

2 wens 7th

14.7˚C

14.4˚C

3 thurs 8th

14.9

15˚C

4 fri      9 th

15.1˚C

15.3˚C

5 sat   10 th

15˚C

15.1˚C

6 sun  11 th

14.4˚C

15.9˚C

7 mon 12 th

14.3˚C

14.7˚C

8 tues 13 th

14.5˚C

14.4˚C

9 wens14 th

14.7˚C

14.8˚C

10 thurs15 th

14.6˚C

14.6˚C

11 fri16 th

15.6

 

 

Natural light

Day

˚C of the morning

˚C of the evening

1 tues 6/07

 

15.4˚C

2 wens 7th

15.9˚C

16˚C

3 thurs 8th

15.9˚C

15˚C

4 fri      9 th

14.9˚C

15˚C

5 sat   10 th

15.9˚C

16˚C

6 sun  11 th

14.9˚C

14.8˚C

7 mon 12 th

14.8˚C

14.7˚C

8 tues 13 th

14.8˚C

14.5˚C

9 wens14 th

14.3˚C

14.4˚C

10 thurs15 th

14.3˚C

14.5˚C

11 fri16 th

14.4˚C

 

Spectrometer 20D

This machine measures absorption and reflection of light. The chlorophyll in the water absorbs the red light and reflects out in return the green light, and therefore the machine measures the absorption. The next step would be to use a special equation to calculate the number of phytoplankton (diatoms) per tube. The color is related to the number of diatoms because of the chlorophyll that they produce.  

 

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Results

Our experiment helped us to discover that phytoplankton need to rest. At the beginning of our experiment we thought that with more light the diatoms would be all hyper active and reproducing like crazy. Although our hypothesis was that the natural light would do the best. Our reasons for this was stating our common knowledge, for example, we did not know for sure how well all dark or all light would do, so we concluded that the natural light would do the best. On the contrary, at home the all light did do the best; however the control that was kept in laboratory conditions was definitely top. This can be seen in our graph below this paragraph.  We did have problems while conducting this experiment; the temperatures were not exact. The average temperature that all phytoplankton need is 16˚C minimum, if you look at our temperature records it is apparent that they only had 1 to 3 times in each section where they reached16˚C. Next time we would like to control the temperature.

 

 

 

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