FERMI QUADRAT PRAIRIE STUDY 2006♥

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DATA:

Table of All Quadrats of Plot 17

GRAPHS OF DOMINANCE AND IMPORTANCE VALUE:

Graphs of Dominance and Importance Values for all Quadrats 2006

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS:

-Part One-

Our class went to Fermi this year, for 2006. Fermi used to be 100% bare earth & non-native grass. It was a weed field.

            There in Fermi, we used quadrats to find out our information. A quadrat is thought of as a picture, during a certain time, in a certain year. To find out our information, we used importance value, dominance, and biological diversity. You are probably wondering, what in the world is importance value, dominance, and biological diversity? Well you are in luck, because here is where you’ll learn how they fit in and what they are, here in Fermi, the land of prairie.

            First, we need to have importance value, dominance, and biological diversity to see how Fermi is doing, health wise. We also use it to compare. Let’s start first with, importance value. Importance value tells us how dominant, how frequent, and how dense a plant is in the ecosystem. To get your importance value, you add relative dominance, plus relative frequency, plus relative density. The higher the importance value, the healthier it is.

            We also need dominance to see how Fermi’s plants are. Dominance is, the total percent cover of species, in other words, the amount of space that is taken, up by the plants. When we use dominance to compare, you want to make sure it is going up. To find your dominance, you count the total amount of plant species there was. Each year we compare how well the plants are doing.

            Another method that we use to get our data and our comparison is biological diversity. Now that sounds like it uses a lot of brain power! Not really. As long as you know how to count, then you will ace this. Biological diversity is many different kinds of living things that live together in the same area. More diversity of life in an environment, the better the environment is. The counting comes in with estimation at how much there is too. You have to compare to other years past data and see if it is healthier.

            Biological diversity, importance value, and dominance, is all very important. We can compare with it and learn more things about Fermi and other different places in the world.

                                                                                   -Part 2-

Fermi’s plants have really changed over the years.

    For our quadrat, we only had 5 different prairie plants and 3 different weedy forbs. My quadrat is healthy because there aren’t many weeds. 2005 had 15 weeds and 21 prairie plants. 2006 had 20 prairie plants and 17 weedy forbs. Big Bluestem had more diversity in the quadrat for both years. We didn’t even have Big Bluestem in our quadrat. Why is the diversity of our quadrat, smaller than the others? Why didn’t we have Big Bluestem, but both years did.

    The plant that had the most dominant for my quadrat is Wild Bergamot. Plot 17 for 2005 was Big Bluestem., (For the prairie plants) also, for the year 2006. For the year 2005, Big Bluestem had 4.38 and for the year 2006, it was 21.19. It must have really spread out in the prairie over time. Has it?

    Now let’s compare the importance value. I bet you never would have guessed, but Big Bluestem has the highest importance value, yet again. For 2006-70.41, for 2005-119.07.for the years 2005 and 2006, unlisted grasslike, had the highest importance value. For 2005 it was 172.17, and for 2006 it was181.71. For my quadrat, Wild Bergamot had the highest importance value for prairie plants. For the weeds, Drummonds Aster had the highest importance value. Over all, 2006 had the heist importance values.

                                                                            -Part 3-

    I think that in the next 10 years Fermi’s weedy forbs will keep increasing their diversity and the prairie plants will decrease a little bit. Also, the Big Bluestem seems to keep getting bigger. It will grow. For the dominance of the big bluestem, it kept getting higher. In the year of 2005, it was only 4.38. Now, in the year 2006, it is 21.19. Also, for the 2005, there were only 15 weedy forbs and now there are 17. That is a good thing and I bad thing. First of all that means that there are more plants, but the more weedy forbs the more water is taken up by them, leaving the prairie plants with less water. In the year 2005 there were 21 prairie plants, but now there are only 20. That not a big difference, but it does show it is decreasing. There for, I think that in the next 10 years Fermi’s weedy forbs will keep increasing their diversity and the prairie plants will decrease a little bit. Making the Big Bluestem more diverse.

                                                                             -Part 4-

    Ever since we went to Fermi, I learned that prairies are more than just grass. Prairies have all different kinds of plants. I also learned how prairies are managed. We learned how to measure rain and how to find out the sunlight power. We now know how to find how moist the ground can be. Do you know that the closer you are to the ground in the prairie, the warmer? Well that’s what we learned! It is very windy in the prairie. So we were taught how to use this tool to find out how windy it is. There is moister in the air at a prairie, believe it or not! There is this tool that has 2 thermometers on it, one for the moister in the air. You then use a graph, after it shows up on the thermometer. In conclusion, I learned that prairies are more than just grass; they have so much importance and facts to them.

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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.