I have changed my site of observation to a pond in my neighborhood in Edmonton, AB.
Subject of Study: The organism that I plan to study is Sandbar willow growing around a pond in my neighborhood.
Field Observations:
Location: A pond in my neighbourhood.
Date, time, and weather: September 24th, around 5:30 pm, Sunny and 17 degrees celsius
Observations: As I was walking around the pond, I noticed that there were a lot of plants growing around the waterbody. I identified one of them to be Sandbar willow, and I started to look for them in different areas around the pound. I noticed that some areas had a higher number of the plants than the others, so started making observations at select locations.I selected 3 locations and made the observations below:
Location 1: Near the pond, approximately within 2 meters from the pond, I noted that there was a considerable amount of sandbar willow growing, with very little space in between them. As the distance increased, I noted that the density of the plants started to decrease. So, I decided to walk further away from the pond, which I selected as my second location.
Location 2: I chose my second location approximately 10 meters away from the pond, and I noticed a significant decrease in the number of sandbar willows, with greater distance in between the plants.
Location 3: Further down from the pond, there was a sidewalk, so I decided to see if there were any sandbar willows across the sidewalk, which I set as my third location. I observed very few of the plants, scattered around a very wide area.
Based off of my observations, I decided to study the abundance of Sandbar willow around the pond
Hypothesis: Distance from the pond will affect the abundance of sandbar willow.
Prediction: The abundance of sandbar willow will be higher in areas closer to the waterbody (the pond), and will decrease as the distance from the pond increases.
Based on your hypothesis and prediction, list one potential response variable and one potential explanatory variable and whether they would be categorical or continuous. Use the experimental design tutorial to help you with this.
Response variable: The response variable is the abundance of Sandbar willow. This would be a continuous variable.
Explanatory Variable: Distance from the pond will be the explanatory or predictor variable, and this is a continuous variable.