Grace's Restoration Reflection

I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived at the Glacial Park Restoration Center. As soon as we got out of the bus and stepped into the building I witnessed a stuffed coyote. I thought to myself jokingly, "so is this what we're going to restoring?" I thought it was so funny, I had to take a picture with it. I was also surprised with one thing. The place had wi-fi. I honestly thought that in a this large field, 

there would not be any internet connection. It was a funny thought. 
    When we walked out of the building, we listened to the ecologist speaking about what we were going to do for the rest of the day and what the motto is at the center. He stated that the point of ecological restoration is to speed up the process of restoring what nature would restore in a much longer time span because humans are degrading faster the nature can reproduce. Therefore, we were there to help restore nature quicker. 
    After walking the a beautiful and mesmerizing field of ups and downs, we split up into groups, and I was in the group to remove invasive species in the forest. At first, I couldn't tell the difference between what was hurting the trees and what was helping it. I decided to just cut down everything but the big oak trees. I hope for the most part, that helped out the trees. Although it took a lot of physical labor,
 I had a lot of fun. When our group had finished, I 
truly saw the difference we made. Before the forest
 was very dull and the trees were barely getting 
sunlight. Now the forest was incredibly open and the
 sun was blazing. I felt really good. I felt like I really
 did something to help nature and the ecosystem. 
After taking some pictures, we moved on to the 
next site.

 


At this next stop, I saw a couple of shrubs planted in a field. Our job was to water them. They did not get water from nature in over a week, so it was our job to help speed up the process. Everyone got a gallon of water and found a dry plant to fill up. After this, we planted acorns. That was my favorite part. We learned about how squirrels find these acorns and disperse them around the forest. Without knowing, these two species shared a relationship. But for some reason, the squirrels did not come to this area, so oak trees were scarce. As our job to restore, we planted a thousand acorns in the field, one by one. I had to take my time digging up a hole and planting one specific acorn at a time, but I felt like I contributed more. I was just imagining that it would be my acorn that I planted to grow and become a huge oak tree. I really enjoyed it. 

 
After finishing up at this site, we were on our way to the bus. I could not stop thinking about how much I learned at this field trip. It was a give and take relationship. I was helping to restore nature, while nature was teaching me. I honestly felt great afterwards, and learned a lot from this experience!  

My Restore the Forest Team! =) 

Marley's Restoration Reflection

During this field trip, we got to experience restoration ecology. The point of ecological restoration is to speed up the process of restoring a degraded area. We went out in the field and removed invasive plants that weren't native to the area. The non native plants were taking over, and weren't allowing the native plants to grow. By removing these invasive plants, we made room for the native plants to grow. We then went on to water new, but native, trees that were brought into the area. We also spread seeds in the same area to help the native plants grow.

This field trip exposed me to something I had never heard of before, and I'm glad I got to experience it. I think restoration ecology is amazing because humans are slowly ruining the environment, and this helps to restore some of the damage. Some of the many benefits of restoration ecology include improving biodiversity, improving ecosystem productivity, improved water quality, and increased carbon storage. All of these things are included in restoring natural ecosystems. After experiencing everything during this trip, I would love to get more involved with restoration ecology.

Morgan's Restoration Reflection

Start of the trip!

At the start of the trip we would learn that buckthorn and a few other species weren't native to the environment. They were brought into this enivronment by people. The ecologist that we worked with would then tell us that this whole area we were in over 3500 acres used to be farm land. The agriculture that would take place before the conservationists took charge of the land had ruined the ecosystems that previously existed. Not to mention that the distruction of the habitats for the animals that lived in the area pushed all the animals away. It was only up until recently that some of the old inhabitants would come back to their previous homes. Like the badgers that had recently returned to the area. The most important thing that was learned from this part of the trip waas that if you restore the environment that the organisms that lived there before it was ruined would return.

 

The next part of the trip was probably the most fun and exciting! We would be removing the plants that were not native to the area. We were making room for those native plants that didn't stand a chance with the over populus non-native plants. In our group we would cut down 4 trees and a large amount of brush that covered the forrest floor. All while leaving the multiple oaks alone. We also created a burn pile because many priaires need fires to grow. This would also kill anything that wasn't naturally occurring since the non-natives wouldn't be able to tolerate the fire.

The next thing that we did on our trip was watering the hill & burr oak sapplings. Since we haven't had very much rain in the past few days it was vital that we gave the sapplings water. We poured about 2 gallons of water on each tree.

The next part was where we planted a bunch of acorns. The acorns that squirrels plant yearly are the natural way of planting oak trees. So forgetting where you acorn is isn't as bad as the squirrel in Ice Age makes it out to be! We planted each acorn about an inch under the surface one by one. Unless you felt a bit lazy then there might have been a few more then one per hole. 

I felt that this was probably one of the best field trips because you could really embrace the nature nd help the environment at the same time! Not to mention you can tell people that you saved the planet for the day! Plus how many people can say they got to use a huge bow saw to cut down trees on a field trip? Only down fall was when I thought I was going to fall down the giant hill that you felt like you could never see the top off. 

Katie's Restoration Post

     Before we started studying ecology, I didn't really think about it that much.  I kind of thought that you just left an area alone in order to restore it to what it used to be.  But there's really cool science involved in restoration ecology.  I think it's totally fascinating how the introduction of one single species can completely change the environment-for better or worse.  During our field trip, the ecologist explained how new species like honeysuckle and buckthorn invaded the area and overtook the landscape. If I was just looking at the land, it would look pretty good to me because there was lots of thriving vegetation.  But, all that vegetation that isn't indigenous to the area has created a landscape that may not be able to support all the organisms it was once able to support.  Recently at Glacial Park,  badgers have been reintroduced to the area because of the restoration projects taking place.  It's pretty cool to see the benefits of the restoration in the past few years.  

Here's what we did on the field trip:

- Watered young tree seedlings that were recently planted

- Planted acorns 

- Scattered savannah grass seeds to make an landscape suitable for several different kinds of plant life

- de-forested an area of honeysuckle and buckthorn in order to restore the natural landscape 

                                  

                                 

                                                            Here's a "before" picture

                                  

                                                            Here's an "after" picture

                 

                                  

      

                                This is where we watered recently planted trees and spread seed

     There's no doubt that restoration ecology has numerous benefits.  Bt what are the downsides?  One question  I definitely have is this: what exactly are the goals of restoration ecologists?  They want to restore the land back to what it was before people changed it, but how "natural" is the landscape supposed to be? The only domesticated animal indigenous to the Americas is the llama, so does that mean that other domesticated animals shouldn't be a part of the landscape's population?  That's a completely extreme example, but in a science like restoration ecology, it might be hard to set specific goals.

   The benefits of restoration ecology are obvious.  It's definitely important for nature's future, and its important for people's future as well.  I'm just glad we got to be a part of it.

Acids and Bases Lab

Purpose:

   The purpose of this lab experiment was to see which substance was the most resistant to differences in pH levels by adding drops of acid and base solution. We were trying to find the best buffer from our substances.

Introduction:

   Acids and bases are formed when water dissociates into a hydroxide (OH-) and hydronium  (H+) ions.  The dissociation occurs because of the polar nature of water.  Water naturally will share electrons unequally between its hydrogen and oxygen atoms.  Sometimes, the electrons will be shared so unequally that the electrons will leave one of the hydrogen atoms and attach to another hydrogen and an oxygen.  That's where hydronium and hydroxide ions are formed.  Acids denote a substance that has an abundance of hydronium ions, and bases have an abundance of hydroxide ions.

     pH is a measure of the quantity of hydronium.  More specifically, it's defined by the negative log of the hydronium concentration.   The pH scale gives people an accurate way of categorizing a substance as an acid or a base.  The substances are placed on one of fourteen points, the lower the number, the more acidic the substance is. If a substance has an H+ concentration of 10 to the negative 7, then it would have a pH of 7.  Likewise, if it had a hydronium concentration of 10 to the negative 13, it would have a pH of 1.  Water is considered neutral with a pH of 7. 

     Buffers are compounds that prevent a substance from becoming too acidic or basic.  They function by either providing H+ ions when a substance becomes too basic, or accepting H+ ions when becoming too acidic.  Buffers are especially important in preserving life.  For example, blood needs to be at about a pH of 7.2.  If it varies too much, biological processes could cease to function.  If it would become too acidic, then a buffer would accept H+ ions from blood.

 Methods:

     First, we tested the pH of water with two separate Vernier probes in two separate beakers.  Then, we gradually added both an acid and a base to different beakers containing the water.  Periodically, we collected the pH of both the acid and base waters.  Next, we tested the pH of an antacid solution and a salt solution and repeated the same steps we took to test the pH of water. 

Data:

   

 Water

pH

 Number of Drops

 

 Salt

pH

Number of Drops

Antacid

pH 

 Number of Drops

Discussion:
     We tested the solutions of water, antacid and salt to see which would be the best at maintaing a consistent pH level when an acid (HCl) or base (NaOH) was added (best buffer).

Water (pH of 7)
(we had a reading of 6.9 pH for our water)

Acid added to water
-starting at a pH of 6.90 acids general trend was a decrease in pH for how much HCl was added. The largest change in pH occurred when we added 10 drops. At this point we observed a 1.55 drop in pH. The pH of the water dropped from 6.9 to 5.35. Through out the rest of the trial the pH would decrease at a rate being cut in half after every trial (ex 0.4 to 0.2 decrease to 0.1). At the end of the trials the pH ranged from 6.9 to 3.12. That's a change of 3.78 pH.


Base added to water
-starting with a pH of 6.90, we added a base to water to find that there was a general trend that was an increase of pH by no specific rate for how much NaOH was added. The largest increase of pH would be after adding 15 drops of base, here the pH increased by 2.26 (8.02 to 10.28). By the end of all the trials the pH ranged from 6.9 to 11.51  which is a difference of 4.61 in pH.

Salt (pH of about 6.5)

Our results for salt showed that without adding any other substances, salt would be between 6.25 and 6.5 on the pH scale.

Adding acid to Salt
 -After adding 5 drops of acid we observed a very slight increase of approximately 0.3 in pH of the acid beaker. For the next set of 5 drops there was relatively no change but it did go down to 6.18. On the contrary, once we hit the 15 drop mark, acid had a much larger change in pH. The salt beaker that was having acid added to it had a change in pH from 6.18 to 4.60. After the acid beaker reached 4.60 it would decrease in pH by increments of 0.2-0.3 for the remainder of the trials. The general trend here was a decrease in pH for how much HCl was added.


Adding a base to Salt
- For this trial there is a strange pH level in the first trial before we added any drops of the base. We had a reading of 9.25 pH, but in the acid portion of the same trial we had a reading for uncontaminated salt of 6.63. We should have this same number if we had done this trial correctly. We did have some human error (we spilled our first beaker and had to start over). I think the reason we had such a high pH at the beginning was maybe we didn't clean the beaker out well enough to get rid of the extra NaOH. Other than that the solution increased at recognizable rate of about 0.4 to 0.5 drop of pH. General trend was an increase for amount of NaOH added.


Antacid (pH of about 6.7)

Adding Acid to Antacid
- We had a starting reading of a pH 6.7. In this trial adding the acid wouldn't really effect the antacid solution. It would not fluctuate much at all. The largest change in pH was between trials of 5 & 10 drops, where the pH would go from 5.98 to 6.10. The highest the pH would be at 6.7 pH and lowest at 5.62 pH. The range of difference in pH was a modest 1.08. The general trend was that the solutions pH wouldn't really change that much at all no matter how much HCl was added.

Adding Base to Antacid
- This trial was another one where we experienced a strange reading in the unchanged solution. We got a reading of 9.11 for the 0 drops added trial. This unfortunately was another trial that we happened to knock over the beaker and spill the contents of the beaker everywhere. I think we go this reading because there was left over NaOH in the beaker. We should have gotten the 6.7 pH that we did in the acid portion. The biggest increase in pH came when the pH jumped from 9.11 to 9.89 a change of 0.78 pH. General trend was an increase of pH for the more NaOH added.

** Antacid is the most resistant to change in pH, which makes it the best buffer out of the three.

Did our findings add up to our hypothesis?

-Despite our human error in two of our trials our expectations were meet in this experiment! We had predicted that we would see a general trend when acid is added to a solution that the pH would decrease and if a base is added then the pH would increase. Although we were unsure which solution would be the best buffer.

Conclusion:

The best buffer we found to be was antacid although our data may have been skewed from spilling the basic substance twice, linearly the antacid was most resistant to the changes in pH level.

References: 
http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~edudev/LabTutorials/Buffer/Buffer.html