The major difficulties with data collection for this project were the variations in temperature and freezing of the river for most of January. Originally I hoped to collect data over a longer period of time starting in January but due to the river being frozen sample time had to be reduced to a period of 3 weeks. Another challenge was temperature variation I started to get a bit of data and then the temperature dropped again and I was back to getting limited amounts. Overall the collection strategy was good though for this type of experiment it would be better to begin later in the winter maybe start collecting data in March into April or May so that there are warming temperatures and a better chance at more consistent data. I am currently running out of time to completely change my data collection and do retrials. Therefore the data I have collected thus far will be the data I will use for this project, possibly some more samples could be collected in march but I am concerned about having enough time to complete the report and statistics with data collect ending so late. I think the approach was good but the timing for this type of experiment was not ideal. Though bad data is still data and with investigating the literature I hope to complete an interesting project about the ecology of river water during winter months even if my original questions remain unanswered.
I will go back and look at your posts and your small assignment for input
you can include some ideas about design in Discussion