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Nitrate Relationship between Soil, Pond, and Stream

Organization(s):St. Francis Xavier Catholic School
Country:United States of America
Student(s):Molly Fleming, Sophia Willard, Gabe Woods
Grade Level:Middle School (grades 6-8, ages 11-14)
GLOBE Educator(s):Amy Woods
Contributors:Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Shriner, Mr. Hallinan, Mr. Rupp
Report Type(s):International Virtual Science Symposium Report, U.S. Student Research Symposia (SRS)
Protocols:Nitrates, Soil Fertility
Presentation Video: View Video
Presentation Poster: View Document
Language(s):English
Date Submitted:03/10/2020
Testing Sites
Water quality is important throughout all watersheds, especially the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Soil and its contents have a direct effect on water quality. This project investigates the question how does the nitrate content in the school campus soil, pond, and stream relate? The hypothesis states that due to the frequent algae in the pond and the fact that the school is surrounded by farms on three sides, the nitrate levels in the soil above the pond and in the stream adjacent to the pond will be high. Soil was collected in the fall and winter. Water was collected from the Pond and Stream once each week. In the fall, fish were caught for one hour to determine the fish population. The hypothesis was partially supported by the data. The results showed that the nitrate levels in the pond ranged from 1.8-8.0 mg/L, which is much higher than the recommended level of less than 1 mg/L. The nitrate level at the school soil site showed depleted in the fall and deficient in the winter. Nine bluegill fish were caught. The revised hypothesis states that the stream and pond will have above normal nitrate values due to the farm fields surrounding the school. The soil that is still in the natural state near the farms will most likely have high nitrate values as well. Problems included lack of test solution, o-rings not forming a solid seal, and difficulty getting dirt due to dry soil. It will be important to find the true source of the nitrates in order to try to decrease the current nitrate levels. Keywords: Nitrate, stream, pond, soil, pH, nutrients, water quality


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Comments

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Marina Pavlić
4 Years Ago
Your idea to find out how many nitrates are in soil and waters in the vicinity of your school is valuable for your school environment. A lot of ranches use fertilizers with nitrates for their soil. This leads to nitrates in soil and water that you detected in your research.
My questions are:
1. I noticed that in methods and materials you mentioned using the thermometer. I did not see any temperature data. Did you measure the temperature or only copied the protocol?
2. You mentioned pH in your keywords, but there is no mention of the acidity of the water in your report. Why?
3. In your report, you wrote: "This reduces the available dissolved oxygen for the fish". It is true and it would be great if you measured oxygen in the water when measuring nitrates. Was there a problem why you did not measure it?
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Student 3 of Amy Woods-Science 7 Marina Pavlić
4 Years Ago
Dear Ms. Pavlić, For our school science symposium and regional Science and Engineering Fair, we each completed a project studying either the stream, pond, or soil. We each used thermometers to take the water and soil temperature, but that data is in our individual project. For this group project, we wanted to focus just on how the nitrate levels related to each area. The pH was also taken for the water in the stream and soil and included in those individual projects. Dissolved oxygen was also measured for the pond and compared to the fish population for that particular project. In the future, we would like to compare each of these parameters for all three locations, but we decided to start with the nitrate levels in each of the three locations. We apologize for the lateness of our reply, but it was difficult to talk about everything when we have been apart. We hope you and your families are well! Thank you very much for looking at our project!
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GLOBE Scientist (inactive)
4 Years Ago
Hi Molly, Sophie, and Gabe,

My name is Clarice Perryman, and I'm working on my PhD at the University of New Hampshire. My research studies microbes in wetlands in the northern USA and the Arctic, and how these microbes affect emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. You can read more about my research here if you are interested!

I was very impressed with how thorough and thoughtful your research project design, data collection, analysis, and presentation was. Your original and revised hypothese really show how well you understand how nitrate moves through ecosystems and why monitoring nitrate levels is important to monitoring water and soil quality. I think extending nitrate measurements to a nearby farmfield and/or natural soils to assess how water and soil nitrate are related is a great idea for extending this project. Have you considered taking additional water chemistry measurements, like dissolved oxygen? I noted that you mentioned the connection between nitrate and DO in the introduction to your presentation.

You made very nice tables and graphs to display your data - I only wished that I got to see them for a bit longer in your presentation! One suggestion for future presentations is to talk about your results on the slide with the relevant table/graph, instead of a separate slide with the results written out. It is usually a lot easier to understand results when you can look at the table/graph while the presenter walks you through the data you are seeing.

Congrats on a very well done research project!
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GLOBE Scientist (inactive)
4 Years Ago
Molly, Sophia, and Gabe -
Thanks for sharing your work! I'm Shan Zuidema, a Research Scientist and PhD candidate at the University of New Hampshire. I study how people affect, rely on, and value watersheds. Although I have used lots of tools, nowadays I mostly work with computer simulation models to understand how changes in how people interact with watersheds will affect aquifers and the riverine ecosystem.

I really liked that you are looking at the nitrogen cycle from a whole landscape perspective! We have only recently began appreciating how connected soil, streams, and ponds can be when it comes to the nitrogen cycle. I thought the plot showing the stream and pond concentrations was a really strong piece, because it shows directly how the two systems are linked. Its interesting how the highest concentrations of the year (the peaks) for the pond and stream aren't at the same time. Why do you think that is? Its hard to tell from the figure, but it appears that the stream and pond are not connected - am I seeing that right - or does the stream flow through the edge of the pond? The fish abundance data confused me a bit; does it support your hypothesis? I try to make sure that every piece of a data I present is related to the question posed or the hypothesis being tested - and tend to get sidetracked if things come up that aren't related. Sometimes less is more!
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GLOBE Scientist (inactive)
4 Years Ago
Dear Molly, Sophia and Gabe,
I am Varun Paul, a faculty in the Geosciences Department at Mississippi State University. I teach courses related to Water Resources and my research focuses on investigating surface water and groundwater quality.

I wanted to congratulate you on the excellent work that you guys did with the nitrate project. You were correct in asking those important questions. Excessive use of fertilizers in agricultural lands is one of the main reasons for high levels of nitrogen in waterbodies, leading to eutrophication and algal blooms. I liked that you tried to compare the stream, pond and soil nitrate values. Researchers and land managers are currently asking the exact questions that you are asking: what is the transportation and fate of these nutrients? As you mentioned, the process is complicated, because the physical and chemical characteristics of soil and that of the water that flows through it are extremely variable. Add to this, human activities like contruction fill. I also liked that you were able to compare the water quality with the fish population.

I would have to liked to hear you all discuss a little bit more about your data slides in your presentation. For example, I was curious to know what your thoughts were on why nitrate in soil was higher in winter than in Fall? Perhaps, you can add precipitation data to your nitrate values as well.

I enjoyed listening to your presentation and reading your work.
Good luck!