Identifying Environmental Hazards

Instructions: You will write a 1-page lab report using the scientific method to answer the following questions:

• Why do you see increases and decreases in the invasive species population?
• What are the implications associated with these alterations to the ecosystem as a whole?

When your lab report is complete, post it in Submitted Assignment files.

Part I: Using the lab animation, fill in the data table below to help you generate your hypothesis, outcomes, and analysis.

Years Zebra and Quagga Mussel (density/m2) Phytoplankton (µg/ml) Zooplankton (µg/ml) Cladophora Biomass (g/m2) Foraging Fish (kilotons) Lake Trout (kilotons)
0 100 3 2 10 150 15
4 1000 2.5 1 100 100 10
7 2500 2 0.5 200 80 8
10 7500 1.5 0.25 600 50 5
13 15000 1 0.1 700 25 2.5
16 7500 1.5 0.2 243 40 4
20 5000 1.75 0.4 136 60 6

Part II: Write a 1-page lab report using the following scientific method sections:
• Purpose
o State the purpose of the lab.
• Introduction
o This is an investigation of what is currently known about the question being asked. Use background information from credible references to write a short summary about concepts in the lab. List and cite references in APA style.
• Hypothesis/Predicted Outcome
o A hypothesis is an educated guess. Based on what you have learned and written about in the Introduction, state what you expect to be the results of the lab procedures.
• Methods
o Summarize the procedures that you used in the lab. The Methods section should also state clearly how data (numbers) were collected during the lab; this will be reported in the Results/Outcome section.
• Results/Outcome
o Provide here any results or data that were generated while doing the lab procedure.
• Discussion/Analysis
o In this section, state clearly whether you obtained the expected results, and if the outcome was as expected.
o Note: You can use the lab data to help you discuss the results and what you learned.
Provide references in APA format. This includes a reference list and in-text citations for references used in the Introduction section.
Give your paper a title and number, and identify each section as specified above. Although the hypothesis will be a 1-sentence answer, the other sections will need to be paragraphs to adequately explain your experiment.
When your lab report is complete, post it in Submitted Assignment files.