Group 4 Reflection

1. What was your Hypothesis?
How does the salinity levels, distilled water, and Ph levels of the water effect plant growth in an estuary?

2. Explain your experiance in gaining and testing the evidence? -Examples? Evidence?
My experiance was very good. We had some issues with some of the equipment however. Originally we were going to mark the gps coorodinates of each spot we measured, however the gps device on the logger pro was not working, so we were not able to do so. Also we found that measuring distilled water was taking way to long so we decided not to use that in our experiment. We took a sample of water from each area that we marked off and measured the salinity in it. Then we took a sample of the mud from the same spot. Each time we movedto a new spot we tried to find an increase in plant growth. There was no where near drastic increases like we thought there would be so it became very difficult to choose which spot to measure next. Also it was very inconvient that all the mud we were collecting was in the water under the plant life. The more plant life there was the muddier and grosser it got. I was the one who had to go into the water and get the mud, and it was extremly gross. My shoes smelled.

3. How was working in a group? what went well? What didnt?
Working in a group was interesting. For our experiment there was almost too many people working on it, becuase of this issue we decided to split the into two for some of the experiment. While one half of the group measured the salinity the other half went to find a new spot and collect the mud. By the time the mud was collected the rest of the group had finished up salinity and was ready to move on to the new area. This plan worked out really well. However in my group we deffinatly had some personality issues. It wasnt that we disliked eachother there wa just a lot of clash in intrests and ideas, which made it very hard to collaberate when things went wrong. However spliting the group in two solved this.

4. How do you know that you gained scientific knowledge?
I know that I gained scientific knowledge because I noticed that as the salinity levels in the water changed the more the plant life changed (Emperisism). I know the instruments work because of authority, like Mrs. Gallo. I know that this was true becuase before the experiment my group did reaearch that told us that the salinity levels would effect plant life. The results shown on the logger pro that Mrs. Gallo told us worked were in accordance to what the research showed.