Final touches on the presentation

I am just about finished the project.  It has been a really long time and lots of hard work.  I learned so much about oysters over the past few months.  I never realized just how important they are are for the health of the Chesapeake Bay.  Not only that but I also learned about setting up and posting on my science blog, video editing, taking pictures and time lapse.  I also used lots of tools which was kind of cool.

Creating the Report

My dad is teaching me how to use a program called iBooks Author.  Its really cool...its not that hard...its just like using Apple pages which I use all the time for my other classes.  One thing that is new on my iPad is the ability to put it into "Guided Access Mode"  this will be great so that nobody can jump around and start playing video games instead of reading about the experiment.

Building the presentation

Even though I have had experience using a saw from building my pinewood derby cars in cub scouts I still do not like saws.  Even with the ear protection they kind of scare me.  My dad really helped me out and he told me a fun story about how his dad helped him build a cabinet for his science project when he was a kid.  The most important thing to remember is to use proper eye & ear protection.

Presentation Schematic

So my dad is going to help me build a cool case for my project.  It will include a window for the aquarium and also for the screen of my iPad mini....since I am going to use this as my main way to do the presentation of the experiment.  Below is the drawing I did with all the measurements.  Later today my dad is going to drive me to the Home Depot in order to buy all the materials I am going to need in order to make the box.  My dad said to add at least 10-20 percent more than I actually need just in case I cut a piece wrong or make some other mistake.

The Oyster Experiment

Everything went well with the experiment. Hard to tell how long it took for the oysters to filter but it was certainly a lot longer than I expected. Below is the movie we put together to show the entire process.

 

The Experiment Proceedure

• I will attempt to replicate the filtering process using an aquarium.

• A two gallon aquarium will be filled with water collected from the Chesapeake Bay.

• An initial baseline water test will then be conducted using testing strips.  The strips will test for Nitrate, Chlorine, Hardness, pH, Nitrite, and Alkalinity.

• The baseline test will then be compared to a followup water test after the completion of the experiment in order to determine if the oysters had any impact on the water quality. 

• Five oysters will be placed in the tank and then algae will be added to the tank.  The oysters will be monitored to see how effective they are in filtering the added algae.  

• A timer will be set up and and the entire experiment will be captured by time lapse photography.  

• For the time lapse, we will incorporate a DSLR camera attached to an intervalometer.  The intervalometer can be set to automatically trigger the shutter on the camera.   We will set the camera to take 1 picture every 30 seconds until the completion of the test.

• If one oyster can filter 50 gallons in 1 day, we would expect that they each filter 2.083 gallons per hour.  We used 5 oysters so we would expect that they together could filter 2 gallons in 12 minutes.

University of MD Horn Point Lab

We contacted the University of Maryland Horn Point Lab that is conducting the Oyster Restoration project.  I was told by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that they would have the right kind of algae that I could use for my experiment.  Unfortunately they are not available for tours until the springtime and therefore I will not be able to get any algae from them.  I will use the other algae wafers instead.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Return Email

Meghan Hoffman (mhoffman@cbf.org) from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation returned my email.  She is very excited about my project and would like to help out anyway they can.  They are having a meeting next week and will let me know when we can visit the Oyster Restoration Center.  She have a few suggestions on how I could conduct my experiment.  It turns out the algae that I bought at the pet store might not be the best.  I might have to contact the University of Maryland's Horn Point Oyster Hatchery.  They might be able to give me a small amount of the right kind of algae that oysters like to eat.   I just looked at the website and they have a lot of great information about oysters.  This is a link to there website http://www.hpl.umces.edu/hatchery/.

Planning the Experiment

I am going to use several cameras in order to track the experiment.  For Christmas I received a Go Pro action camera (which can be used underwater) which I will be using in time lapse mode.  It is taking sometime to get all the settings right.  My dad is also letting me use his professional video camera and tripod to help record the process and his DSLR camera which will take a time lapse of a 24 hour period.  My dad who is a photographer is going to teach me how to do time lapse photography.

Reviewing Video Notes From CBMM

Today I am reviewing the video notes from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum that I took with my new iPad.  There was a lot of useful information that I can use for my science fair project.  understanding every aspect about the oyster and the Chesapeake Bay will help me with my experiment.