What’s in a Watershed: Post-activity Lab Report

In this activity, your group came up with your own hypothesis or hypotheses and the predictions from them. You designed and conducted your own experiments to test your hypotheses, and then interpreted your results. But one of the most important parts of science is being able to communicate it. If, at the end of a research project, you can’t tell other people what you found, then your results don’t have very much impact.

Your assignment is to write a report on your findings. You should include the following parts:

Introduction: Include some background on your stream and / or stream ecology. Then explain what your hypothesis is, and what you expect to find.

Methods: Do NOT just list what you used. Write this in paragraph form. Tell the reader what you did.

Results: What did you find? Don’t interpret anything yet. Just tell us what each test you did told you.

Discussion: Again, in paragraph form, don’t just answer the questions. What do the results mean? Is your watershed healthy? What did your classmates get? Are your results similar to theirs? If not, can you think of reasons why there may be differences? Can you make any recommendations for people to keep their watershed healthy, or to improve their watershed’s health?

Your report should read like a narrative, not like you are answering a series of questions.

What’s in a Watershed: Post-activity Questions

Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper, using complete sentences.

1. What was your hypothesis? If you had more than one, include them all.

2. Based on your hypothesis, what were your predictions?

3. Describe your experiment that you carried out to test your hypothesis.

4. What were your results? Include the results of each experiment you did.

5. How do you interpret your results? Is your watershed healthy?

6. Do your results agree with what your classmates got? If not, can you think of reasons for differences?

7. Can you make any recommendations for people to keep their watershed healthy, or to improve their watershed’s health?