Year-Long+Ecological+Study+of+Hamburger+Pond

We are fortunate at the Galloway School to be located in Chastain Park in Atlanta. We have a catchment pond located behind the school grounds, and we are able to use this site for ecological studies.

The students in the APES classes were asked to design an investigation of Hamburger Pond that would last most of the year. Each class was asked to come up with their own independent and dependent variables and then work to develop research design. Both classes, during their brainstorming sessions came up with similar projects; both classes wanted to investigate how season might affect abiotic factors in the pond. Seasons were defined by a combination of calendar designations and subjective knowledge of air temperature changes in Atlanta. Students will be sampling on 3 different days during each season. The students chose to test the following factors during the 3 different seasons: level of nitrates, level of phosphates, dissolved oxygen levels, carbon dioxide levels, pH, water temperature, and water hardness. Each class samples two different sites near the pond shore; one class in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Students run each of the tests 3 times for each of the two sites sampled. All data is uploaded to a class accessible spreadsheet on Google Drives.

Students will be analyzing the data and drawing conclusions over the coarse of this one year. We hope that this establishes a protocol for continued data collection by Galloway students each year.

**Water Quality Sampling Photos**
TBA