Jazmin Alvarado

APES 5th 6th

Eco Column Lab Report

The purpose of our eco column experiment was to demonstrate how the productivity of
different ecosystems work. We created a terrestrial chamber ecosystem that will be able to harbor
life. We monitored the biotic factors that help sustain life so that we can have a better understand
how real ecosystems work. Specifically In our eco column experiment we were monitoring the
growth of the grass. The importance of our experiment was to show how acid rain affects the
growth of grass, we were able test this by adding 3 different levels of PH (5, 7, 9) into 3 different
chambers. Our dependent variable was primary productivity and our independent variable was
amount of light and ph.
Procedure:
First, we made three eco columns out of empty soda bottles
Secondly, we filled the bottom halfs of each eco columns with water and aquatic plants
Then we added soil and grass seeds into the top halfs of the eco column
Lastly we took a graduated cylinder and added 10 mL of ph. and 20 Ml of water to each
of the eco columns and would look at the progress every week

Results: our data showed that the first week we were testing our eco columns the eco column that
had the highest level of ph. (ph. 9) had well developed mass and a wet mass of 12.9g and a dry
mass of 2.7g which was a lot better compared to the eco column that has a ph. of 5. And when
we looked at the comparison of ph. 5 and ph.7 we were able to see that ph. 5 had a wet mass of
9.3g and a dry mass of 1.4g which was greater than ph. 7 which had a mas of .5g and a dry mass
of .1g.
Our hypothesis was incorrect, we hypothesized the chamber that had ph. 5 added to it
would have the most effect on the growth of grass and have the lowest amount of mass. While
looking at our data we were able to conclude that ph. 5 five neither have a large effect on the
growth of grass and neither had a low mass.

Jazmin Alvarado
APES 5th 6th

From our question we were able to actually look at how ph. levels have an effect on grass gown
we learned that depending on the levels of ph. the grass would grow differently in our specific
experiment we learned that the higher the ph. the better photosynthesis. Throughout our
experiment we ran into a couple of complications such as when we would trip the grass some
chambers had a lot of grass and others had very little and we werent sure where we can cut it
and make it still equal. But eventually we were able to find a solution. Another problem we had
was when we would trip the grass we wouldnt collect all the grass some would fall or just get
cut and left in the chamber so we wonder if that can possibly have an effect on our data. For
future experiments my group and I would like to look at a variety of different ph. levels and also
focus more on the changing of the water in the chambers we notice by the levels of ph. The color
of water was darker and had a strong odor and another was real clear and we would like to look
more into what causes it and why.