Purpose
What we are trying to learn is why do worms differ in numbers depending on location and does the quality of soil affect the number of worms in an area?
The variables we need for this investigation are the types of soils, because we need to see which types of soils have the most worms (sandy, loamy ,clay, etc), what soil and air temperatures are the worms most common in, is it high temperature or low temperatures? We also need locations, how many worms are found in this location compared to that location.
Our Project
Our project is all about worms. Our project is all about trying to see which locations have the most worms and if the soil texture has anything to do which the fact that that location has that many worms. Like for example, out of all the locations we collected data from, the bird garden had the most worms. Then we knew that we needed to collect soil from that location because it had the most worms and we needed to see why. Turns out the bird garden has a sandy clay loam soil. Then for our lowest one at the north lawn, it turned out to be slit. We are trying to learn why worms come out more in the location and this soil compare to that location and that soil. Everyone can contribute to the project in many ways like for example, someone can help set the wagon for outside while another person can help fill up the water jugs. Then another person can help me with setting up the transect line. There are lots of different ways people can help contribute to the project
Sampling Location
The types of locations you can find data for worms is basically anywhere in the soil. We selected at our location at random by throwing a ball at the selected location,then wherever the ball landed, that’s where we would set up our transect line and from there we would mark every 10 meters for our samples. We would go to various places around the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum like the bird garden, north pond, near the lagoon, and a lot of other places. We even did some data collection at montrose beach and at the Sweet Water Foundation. When we were collecting data at those places, we noticed that we did our sampling in grass a lot and we had to dig in order to start the true process.
Richard,Gaby,Liz