Duckweed Lab Report

After completing this experiment, I reject the hypotheses that when the amount of dish soap is increased in the water and duckweed solution, there will be more fronds of duckweed because the phosphorus and nitrogen in the dish soap will cause eutrophication and increased growth in the duckweed. There was not a significant (20%or more) difference in growth in any of the jars. The expected results were that jar B would have the most growth of duckweed because it was the most concentrated with dish soap, so there was more nitrogen and phosphorus in the jar to cause eutrophication. The expected result was that with every jar that had a smaller concentration of dish soap, there would be a smaller increase in duckweed growth. The actual experiment …show more content…
After Jar B’s fronds were white and dead, the conclusion that higher concentrations of dish soap can kill organisms like duckweed and be deadly if exposed to the environment, possibly through rivers and runoff, in high concentrations was formed. Some experimental errors were that small concentrations of Dawn to be added to the jars, like 1%, 0.1%, and 0.01% were difficult to measure with the dropper and errors in measuring were likely made. The amount of tap water to be measured was also a difficult process because the graduated cylinder did not have the exact amounts of water needed in the experiment. Not all of the dish soap came out of the graduated cylinder when measuring out 10 ml for jar B so there was less dish soap in the jar than intended. This experiment could be improved by increasing the concentrations of dish soap so there would be more variety in the results, like using 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.7%, 1%, and .1%. This experiment could also be improved by using the dropper when measuring all of the dish soap amounts and using an advanced measuring system with increased technology to measure out the exact amounts of water