Experimental design: A study on grassland quality at York University

The dataset was collected on Monday, October 19, 2015 from 2:30pm to 5:30pm. The location was at York University’s Danby grassland. On that day, the weather was partly cloudy and slightly windy. The temperature was 14 degrees Celsius and 59% humidity. The grassland was slightly wet due to the rain from the day before. The dataset was collected in a group of four - Krystal Nguyen, Savannah Wales, Mustafa Alan and Sumera Siddiqui. The experiment was conducted to study about the soil and sunlight conditions in order to sustain the grasslands at York University. The predictions are the sunlight coverage and the moisture of soil would influence the growth of plants. The hypothesis was 100% sunlight coverage and slightly moist soil would be an optimal condition for grassland plants to grow. In order to perform the experiment, York University’s Danby grassland was chosen as it represents a good quality grassland having high abundance and distribution of many plant species. 120 quadrats were placed randomly on the ground and observed within one minute interval. Within each quadrat, number of plant species was counted by a quick eye counted and sunlight coverage was recorded based on a light coverage scale from 0 to 4, representing for 0%,25%,50%,75% and 100% sunlight coverage. The moisture of the soil was also measured based on a scale from 1 to 3, standing for dry, slightly moist and moist. The collected dataset suggests that areas (1M by 1M) having 50% sunlight coverage and slightly moist soil are optimal for about 5 plants species to grow. However, this data may be prone to error due to many possible human error that would affect the result, such as some plant species was hidden and miscounted, moisture of the soil was classified improperly, etc.