FERMI QUADRAT PRAIRIE STUDY 2006

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GPS LOCATION: N:41° 50' 28.3    W:88° 16' 25.0

STUDENT RESEARCHER: Richard C

Aerial view of Fermi prairie quadrat plat 17

Map to fremi lab

DATA:

Table of our Fermi Quadrat

Table of all quadrats of plot 17 from team

GRAPHS OF DOMINANCE AND IMPORTANCE VALUE:

Graphs of dominance and importance values for all quatrats

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS:

                                                                                                          Part 1

The three main topic I used to compare. They are domance, importance value, and diversity these tell a lot about the statue and health of the prairie. In my quadrat the reason that domance is important is because it tells how much space or area that a type of plant takes up, but the more space taken up might not be the most of the plant because domance counts size too. Domance not only tells the plants area above ground but also under there is three times as much of the plant under than above. The reason that importance value is important is because it tells how much of a plant there is you might be thinking doesn’t domance already tell you? No, it doesn’t domance only tells how much plants take up. The plants can be bigger for example there was very little domance of crabgrass in my quadrat, but importance value is very high because there is 30 in each 10 by 10 cm square of crabgrass, but only 6 in each 10 by 10 square of big blue stem. Diversity is somewhat like domance, but somewhat different. Diversity is total number of plants of a certain species that means it is just a small area in other words diversity is just domance in a smaller area it helps because some areas might have all weeds, but some areas might have all grass. Also all of that data is added up you don’t know the individuals in domance that’s how diversity comes in. Now you know each comparison and how to use them and why.

Part 2

The difference between my and the whole groups is that it didn’t have that many types meaning that when something grows it grows in close places like they don’t stay away from each other, but they also don’t want them to grow is a big cluster usually a smaller cluster in some prairie. Meaning some might have a lot of a plant some can have very little. I only had seven plants varieties in my quadrat. Doesn’t matter because I have a lot of each. In based in my schools quadrat and its three years ago didn’t change much expect for one thing I am not sure that if unlisted is crabgrass but there is a increase of it every year. And the weeds stayed around that area expect two years ago there was a big die out of grasses and a large increase in weeds in that year the domance of crabgrass was a whooping 42.60 that’s almost 50% of the whole prairie is crab grass but next year it got better they lowered. Maybe because they burn it every year and grasses have long roots so they took over again. The importance value of the items in my quadrat was much larger because plants grow in a cluster explained in part one (link) the domance was much larger than the total schools because I had less plants to work with.

Part 3

I predict that there won’t be a huge change maybe one year more weeds and another year more grasses, but I think if no flood natural disaster comes it will be fine. Also, I noticed that in one year, there was a significant increase in weeds. I don’t know why, but also, the year after that, the weeds decreased. I thought that either they burned the prairie or there was a huge drought. Burning the prairie is actually better for the grasses. The grass has long roots that could grow back into plants, but the weeds don’t. The reason drought helped is because the grasses have three times the length in their roots than weeds. The grasses are native plants and have adapted to the environment. Unlike the grasses, the weeds are non-native and would die in a drought.

Part 4

I learned a lot in this activity. I learned how plants can affect us. Without prairie reserves, some very unique plants will be extinct and we helped a lot too, by doing this activity, every year, we helped the unaware scientists count the plants and see if there is a lot of weeds and if they need to plant more grasses or burn some. In this project, we can restore how Illinois used to be thousands of years ago possibly, better. 

COPYRIGHT:

© Copyright 2006, L&T Natural Images and Madison Jr. High, all rights reserved. Contact information: email at lccwik@comcast.net or tcoutts@naperville203.org

ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
This project was created by the 7th grade students of team 7 UPS from Madison Jr. High, Naperville Consolidated Unit School District #203 in Naperville, Illinois with the help of their teacher Mrs. Trudi Coutts along with Technology Lab Director Mrs. Margaret Gilmore. Support for the project came from Principal Ms. Erin Anderson and the other dedicated and cooperative faculty and staff of Madison Jr. High.

 

REFERENCES:
Fermilab Education Department particularly the SIMply Prairie Project. Authors: Bill Fraccaro, Johnson School, Wheaton, IL; Larry Cwik and Pat Franzen, Madison Junior High School, Naperville, IL; and Bernie Jokiel, Gary D, Jewel Middle School, North Aurora, IL.
Created for the NTEP II Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Friends of Fermilab, and funded by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.