Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the changes in temperature one meter above the ground along an environmental gradient of one meter. The data will be take using increments of one meter from a wall.
Introduction: An environmental gradient is a gradual change in abiotic factors through space (or time). Environmental gradients can be related to factors such as altitude, temperature, depth, ocean proximity and soil humidity. In this experiment the envionrmental gradient is temperature taken at a certain altitude and distance from the wall.
The temperature is affected by the sunlight that the area or its surroundings are receiving. The surroundings is the distance from the wall of the building as well as the canopy cover. The temperature is also affected by other environmental factors such as the speed of the wind
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Also the error bars on the time distance are present but they are so small it is not a significant enough number to show on the graph. The error bars are the same as the uncertainty on the instruments. The data points on the graph show that the line of best fit includes all the data within the error bars and so the data is moderately precise and the results are reliable.
The limitations of the experiment were that the exact measurement of the distance and time were both done by hand and so there is human error involved. Also we can see that because the data was taken at a certain time the results will not work for all times of the day. The experiment can be improved by using more accurate measurement when it comes to time and the distance, however this would not affect the results significantly because they are already very precise. Also the temperature could be taken digitally so that the thermometer’s bulb is not affected as much by the light intensity