yorku.grassland.Sept20-2016.csv

Prediction
It was expected
the amount of grass coverage in percent is greater than the percentage of plant
or vegetation coverage within the grassland environment.

Hypothesis

The
proportion of grass coverage is greater than the percentage of plant coverage
in a given grassland environment because the grass takes up more nutrients from
the soil, allowing less plants to grow.

Meta-data

          The observational study was done in a grassland
setting at the location of Boyer Woodlot with a latitude of 43.8o
and a longitude of -79.5o. This experiment was conducted from 2:50
p.m.- 4:40 p.m. on September 20th 2016. The temperature was 25ᴼC with the
weather forecast being mostly sunny. A quadrat was one of the equipment that was
used to sample the plant population in the grassland environment.  Next the length and width of the quadrat was
measured with a measuring tape to calculate the total area of the quadrat,
which was 1m2. The quadrat was divided into 100 square grids and
each square grid had the dimensions 10 centimetres by 10 centimetres. The
quadrat was initially placed at the edge of the grassland area northwest of the
Lumbers building. Overlapping plants and grass were not taken into account. The
total amount of plants was then calculated by counting the plants within the
100 square grids.  All the different
species of plants were also counted and included in the total number of plants.
All the plants grown from the root within the interior of the quadrat were
counted where each stem was counted as one individual plant. After the number
of different plant species were counted by visually observing the amount of
different plant species found in the quadrat. The different plant species were
classified as a different species based on the size, shape, and colour of the
plant. The coverage of plants and grass were measured as a percentage. Each
square grid within the quadrat is equal to 1% of coverage, and the coverage of
the plant was calculated by seeing how much of the 100 square grids were
covered with plants. Next the coverage of grass was calculated by looking at
the amount of grids that contained grass. In total the coverage of plants and
the coverage of grass together added up to 100% coverage.
The
study was repeated for a total of 25 times (n=25). Random sampling was
determined by placing the quadrat apparatus 1m apart from where the last
quadrat observation was conducted in order to obtain accuracy in the results. The
1st researcher collected the data for the total vegetation and grass
population in percent. While the 2nd researcher collected the data
for the number of different species in the experiment.