FERMI QUADRAT PRAIRIE STUDY 2006

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GPS Location	Geographical Map of Fermilab	Aerial View Of Fermilab and Plot 17
	Our Fermi Quadrat

DATA:                                                                                                                       

OUR FERMI QUADRAT

Table of All Quadrats for Plot 17                                                                                    

Table of our Fermi Quadrat

GRAPHS OF DOMINANCE AND IMPORTANCE VALUE:                                        

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS:                                                                                           

Part One

When we went to Fermilab, my quadrat team collected data on plant and weed dominance, importance value, and diversity. Our quadrat team collected this data because it is important for comparing our prairie plot, Plot 17, to other prairie plots or data from past years. These certain characteristics of the prairie population also help us analyze how well the prairie is doing. In case you don't understand these characteristics, I will explain. Dominance is a study of which plants are most noticeable and take up the most room. The dominant plants are important because they change the environment in negative and positive ways. A negative influence they have is the most dominant plant or plants, sometimes block shorter plants from the sunlight. A positive effect is they supply much of the food and living space for animals. Another effect is they change the soil chemistry through their roots. Another critical characteristic is Importance Value. It tells you how important a plant is to the prairie. The most important plants will have a higher importance value than the plants that are not as important. Importance Value can be found by adding Relative Dominance, Relative Frequency, and Relative Density. The last data we collect is Diversity. Diversity is the variety of different plants living in the same area, or in our case, prairie. Generally, the more diversity, the better it is for the prairie.

Part Two

            The values of my quadrat are quite different than the values of Plot 17. For instance, the importance value of the Compass Plant in my quadrat is 36. The importance value for Compass Plant in Plot 17 is 4.51. This is because my quadrat is only one meter by one meter. Compass Plant takes up room in my quadrat because there were only a few kinds of plants and weeds. In Plot 17 however, Compass Plant does not take up as much room because Plot 17 is vaster than my quadrat and has many more plants and weeds. Weeds also dominated in my quadrat. All together, there were five hundred blades of Crabgrass in my quadrat. But in Plot 17, there were more than three thousand blades of Crabgrass. As you can see, the importance values, which were based off the dominance values, were very different. Another value that is different is diversity. This is because plants are not going to be evenly distributed throughout the plot, so while my quadrat team may have seen many plants in our quadrat, there might be a clump of "Black-eyed Susans" somewhere else in the plot that my group did not have in our little quadrat. This means that the benchmarks and values for Plot 17 are going to be different than the standards for any given quadrat. But, one thing that was the same was the plant dominance. In our quadrat, one of the most noticeable plants was Big Bluestem. In Plot 17, Big Bluestem has been either the first or second most dominating plant for 2004, 2005, and 2006. It has been switching off with Indian Grass for the past few years. In our quadrat, Indian Grass was the second most dominating plant, just falling behind Big Bluestem. The data from our quadrat proves that for the past few years, these two grasses have been dominating the prairie. They are the most noticeable and they take up the most room, above and below the ground.

Part Three

I predict that the genetics of the prairie will not change dramatically, but it will change. I think that every year there will be about three new plants that are one of the top ten dominating plants that were not one of the major factors of the prairie in previous years. Because of the change in dominance, I think that slowly, more diversity will be added to the prairie because the dominant plants change the amount of sunlight, which could allow new plants to grow, and the dominant plants also supply food and living space, which could lead to new species. The weed dominance will also lessen because with all the plants growing taller, the number of shorter weeds will begin to shrink. I also think that slowly, the soil chemistry will change. I think that in twenty years, the soil will be more acidic due to death and decay. So, when Plot 17 is thirty years old, the structure of the prairie will be somewhat different.

Part Four

            Overall, I learned a lot from our field trip to Fermilab. Before, I only knew that that a quadrat is a one meter by one meter square used to take in data about the prairie. The only other thing I knew was how to use an anemometer, psychrometer, a tool that measures, pH, soil moisture, or light intensity, and a thermometer. Once we got to Fermilab, I saw all the diversity and what it is really like to be out on the prairie. I never knew there could be so many different plants! From what I knew, I thought the quadrats at Fermilab would be like the quadrats that we did at our reconstructed prairie at Madison, where there were only a few plant species. It turns out that there are lots of different varieties of plants out on the prairie. I also didn’t know what it would be like on the prairie from out reconstructed prairie at Madison. At Madison’s prairie, you could see the building or the parking lot from wherever you were standing. At Fermilab, you could stand away from the road and see nothing but grasses that seemed to go on for forever. So overall, I learned it’s one thing to go out into Madison’s reconstructed prairie, but you can’t replicate what it’s like going out into a real prair

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.