Apes Soil Lab Report

Aarthi Kannan, Ishani Kapoor, Eleanor Nelson, Ritwik Pavan

AP Environmental Science

Mrs. Ogren Period: 02

05 March 2015

APES Soil Lab Report

Introduction

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." Soil plays an integral part in our lives, influences the distribution of plant species, and provides a habitat for a wide range of organisms. Soil and land-use management are very essential in order to balance food production and food security with biomass production for energy. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), good agricultural performance works to reduce unfaltering poverty through two main factors: income and the price channels.1 Due to a large percentage

Also, due to food constituting such a high share of consumer expenditures by the poor, lower food prices might accompany increased food production per capita. It is the foundation of agriculture, and thus, soil is a necessity for human existence. As the population continues to grow rapidly, the utilization of soil must be carefully taken into account and we must make decisions that are best for the environment. When we performed this lab, we asked ourselves the following question: How does the location of where soil is found and its classification affect its pH?

The purpose of this experiment was to test the pH of various soils found in various locations. Our hypothesis was that different types of soil have different pH levels. Our independent variables were the compositions of two soil samples, and our dependent variable was pH. Our control group was a loam because loam, by definition, is composed mostly of sand and silt, and contains a small amount of clay. By using a loam as our control group, the results of our experimental groups can be accurately compared to our control group, because the parts of the experimentals essentially make up the control

The soil used in the control was loam found in potting soil from a home garden in Raleigh, NC. Our prediction was that the clayey soil (Experimental 1) would have the most acidic pH because it was found in a park with no substantial vegetation growing in this soil. This indicated that there were not enough nutrients present in the soil for plants to grow, so the pH of the soil must be quite acidic. The soil used in Experimental 2, from Banbury Greenway located near a body of water, was sandy soil. Our prediction relating to the sandy soil (Experimental 2) was that it would have the pH closest to 7 because it was found near a body of water. We also predicted that the loam (Control), which was used to grow plants in a garden, would have a pH around 6 and no more than 7.5 because a soil that has an acidic or extremely basic pH does not contain necessary nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that plants