Abstract

Allison Derrick

The purpose of this experiment was to test the effect of a phosphate on the oxygen level in pond water. The hypothesis is that the phosphate will have an effect on the level of oxygen in the pond water. The pond water with ten drops of the phosphate mixture will have less dissolved oxygen than the pond water with fifty drops of the phosphate mixture.

For this experiment, eighteen jars were filled with tap water and one milliliter of algae was added to each. The jars were labeled so that three were the constant, three had ten drops of the phosphate mixture, and so on until the last three jars had fifty drops of the phosphate solution. The jars were placed under a growth light. The amount of dissolved oxygen was measured daily using a dissolved oxygen meter and the results were observed.

When averaged, this experiment proved that the jars containing the constant did have more oxygen than the jars with the detergents because the constants had an average reading of 9.30. When all the amounts were averaged, the jars with only ten drops of the detergent solution proved to have more oxygen than the jars with twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty drops. Their average was 9.25. The jars with twenty drops of the detergent solution had the third greatest amount of oxygen than the jars with thirty, forty, and fifty drops. Their average was 9.17. The jars with fifty drops of the detergent solution had the fourth greatest amount of oxygen and had more oxygen than the jars with thirty and forty drops. Their average was 9.15. The jars with thirty drops of the detergent solution had a total average of 9.11 and the jars with forty drops of the solution had an average of 9.13.