Determining whether human and environmental interferences affect the height of plant species, Goldenrod, Purple Aster and White Aster.

The experiment was conducted at the Danby Grassland at York University for a span of two days, October 15, 2015 and October 22, 2015 between the times of 2:45-4:00 pm EST. The weather on October 15, 2015 consisted of cloudy skies with light periodic showers with an approximate temperature of 18 C. The weather on October 22, 2015 consisted of clear blue skies with an estimated temperature of 16 C. The Danby grassland was comprised of grass, scattered trees and variety of different plant species. It is to be noted, that due to significant weather changes during the period between the sampling days, resulted in reduction in the abundance of the plant species of interest, thus increasing difficulty in identifying them.

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the height of specified plant species (Purple Aster, White Aster and Goldenrod) at each site within the grassland; the exterior and interior, in order to provide the required experimental evidence to reject or fail to reject the hypothesis formulated by the experimenters, whether reduced environmental and human interferences play a role in the height of the specified plant species. The exterior was identified by the experimenters as the 98.4 feet distance gap from the interior site. It is also to be noted that the exterior site was 84 feet away from the edge of road on Keele Street. The interior site consisted of dense, diverse and abundant vegetation as opposed to the exterior site that contained isolated vegetation, with boundaries that showed clear signs of mowing sometime during prior weeks. A total of 100 replicates were collected for each plant species, with 50 replicates from the exterior site and 50 replicates from the interior site. 40 replicates at each site was collected on October 15, 2015 and the remainder were collected on October 22, 2015. Each plant species was identified randomly at each site using the guidebook provided and later confirmed by all experimenters prior to measuring the height. The height was measured in inches using a transect tape with a total range of 100 feet, from the bottom of the plant to the highest flower. All measurements (based on the measurements on the transect tape) were recorded using the Imperial System to avoid accuracy and precision errors, had the experimenters converted to the Metric System. The sample size including all three plant species was 300.

The experimenters were Bava, Saraswatie, Eman and Azeb.