Case Study Herbert Run
After the data was collected and compared I accepted my hypothesis but also rejected a part of my hypothesis. I reject that both streams have a high turbidity level. I believe this could be an error in our testing. Our sample was taken the same day as the testing and this is the recommended procedure for testing turbidity. That leads me to believe that we had an error in the way we tested for the turbidity. I accepted the prediction I had made as true. Herbert Run did have a better water quality than Commons stream. Herbert Run is connected to a larger water source, which is one of the possible reasons it has a better water quality. With water restoration and policies being put into place to reduce water pollution, the stream being connected
to a larger body of water could be what is benefiting Herbert Run (Duda, 1989). There may have been other sources of error in this experiment. These derived from the laboratory procedure itself. The planned lab procedure was completely changed from the original experiment. The original samples were thrown away and due to a lack of time to finish each test there is a possibility that the tests were rushed. There could have been errors resulting from us rushing that we were not aware of that resulted in a turbidity level of zero for both streams. In the future if I were to further investigate this issue, I would change the duration of the experiment, increase the sample size, randomize the samples, repeat the tests, and add additional water quality tests to my experimental design. Although, there was research conducted for this experiment over the course of 2-3 weeks, the actual experiment consisted of 1-3 hours. For a second experiment, water quality data would be gathered through a multi-month longitudinal study. Along with the collection and testing of various water quality elements, I would also track each site’s increased or decreased level of construction and human interaction (if possible). With this I could eliminate multiple sources of error, including rain fall effecting my turbidity. I also could test for other parameters that would give a more complete understanding of the water quality and its effects on plant and animal life. Overall, the experiment yielded the expected result and I believe certain policies should be made to clean up both streams at UMBC.
to a larger body of water could be what is benefiting Herbert Run (Duda, 1989). There may have been other sources of error in this experiment. These derived from the laboratory procedure itself. The planned lab procedure was completely changed from the original experiment. The original samples were thrown away and due to a lack of time to finish each test there is a possibility that the tests were rushed. There could have been errors resulting from us rushing that we were not aware of that resulted in a turbidity level of zero for both streams. In the future if I were to further investigate this issue, I would change the duration of the experiment, increase the sample size, randomize the samples, repeat the tests, and add additional water quality tests to my experimental design. Although, there was research conducted for this experiment over the course of 2-3 weeks, the actual experiment consisted of 1-3 hours. For a second experiment, water quality data would be gathered through a multi-month longitudinal study. Along with the collection and testing of various water quality elements, I would also track each site’s increased or decreased level of construction and human interaction (if possible). With this I could eliminate multiple sources of error, including rain fall effecting my turbidity. I also could test for other parameters that would give a more complete understanding of the water quality and its effects on plant and animal life. Overall, the experiment yielded the expected result and I believe certain policies should be made to clean up both streams at UMBC.