[singing]
Oh, Hello
Dan The Fish Man here with the US Fish &Wildlife Service.
Welcome to my garden.
You know, a lot of people ask me, 
"Dan what is the secret to a productive garden?"
And I've got to say that at the top of my list has got to be soil quality or soil fertility.
And if you dig around deep enough in my garden, you'll notice the occasional salmon bone.
Why? Well I do tend to catch a lot of salmon.
And I don't like to throw away the scraps. I compost them.
What I'm really doing is taking notes from nature.
Because salmon are super super important to the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest.
When it comes to soil fertility, you don't have to take my word for it. In fact, I don't want you to take my word for it.
Let's SCIENCE.
[music]
Alright, for this lesson we're going to cover how to setup and conduct a scientific experiment on soil quality.
First, we're going to cover some common items that you can find around the household and your neighborhood
that you can use for this experiment.
Second, we're going to cover the Scientific Method
and apply it to this scientific experiment.
Lastly, we're going to draw some connections between soil quality, food webs,
and more specifically, fisheries science.
Let's do this.
Ok, if we're going to be doing a scientific experiment involving plants we've got to put them in something.
And not everybody is going to have access to these planters that you get at the store.
No worries though, there's all kinds of containers you can use around the house.
The main thing you want to keep in mind
is that you want to have the same size, shape, color of your planters
because if there are any differences, that could affect your results and we don't want that.
More on that later.
Ok, we're obviously going to need some soil for this experiment on soil quality.
So look around your property or neighborhood
and try to get a sample in a bucket or container like this.
Don't need a lot.
Now what you want to do is you want to mix it very thoroughly.
After you've mixed your soil, you're going to take one planter
and you're going to fill it up and that's going to be your lower quality soil
because what we want to do is we want to improve the remaining soil in here
by adding fertilizer or compost.
Now if you don't have access to those things you can make your own compost and it's not that difficult.
So for example if you look around and find some leaves
especially dried leaves, crush those up, add those in, mix that in.
Same thing with grass clippings.
Fresh grass clippings have a lot of nitrogen in them.
So adding those in there.
Used coffee grounds. Make sure they're used. But used coffee grounds, used tea
those sorts of things are great compost and it's not going to produce a lot of foul smells and stuff.
So you're going to mix that all together.
Add some water.
Stir it every other day.
And after about a week or two you should have some good compost for your experiment.
And that's what you're going to be filling the other container with.
Alright, the last item on our list of needs for this experiment
would be the plants themselves.
So ideally we would grow these plants from seed.
But not everybody is going to have access to seeds so there are some other solutions to that.
For example,
if you walk around your neighborhood, odds are
[blowing sound]
you can find some dandelion seeds.
But it might not be the right time of year for that.
So if you have trouble finding any sort of wild seeds
to grow from seeds
then another options would be to try to find weeds,
and transplant them in your pots.
Just make sure that they're the same species and about the same size.
Then you're on your way to conducting this experiment.
Alright, we've got our materials covered.
I'm sure many of you have an idea of what your scientific experiment is going to look like.
However let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
We want to make sure we're following the Scientific Method.
So I'm going to review that real quick.
Then I'm going to revisit a couple of the components
and add some additional detail that has to do with this experiment specifically.
Alright, so Science starts with a question.
Then you want to do a little research.
Research a little about soil, research a little about plants.
What are their essential needs?
Then we're going to follow with a Hypothesis, or an educated guess.
Then we're going to design and conduct your experiment.
Experiment is the next step.
Then we are going to analyze the data, or information that you've collected.
And from that data, you analyze it and draw your conclusion.
Did the data support your hypothesis?
Did it not?
Why so? Why not?
And then lastly we want to communicate that science.
What good is science if you don't share your findings with your family or your friends?
So, that's the basic scientific method right there.
So when we're talking about this experiment specifically
there's a few things I want you to keep in mind.
One is, what kind of data are you going to be collecting?
Now there's two broad categories of data.
There is quantitative data and there is qualitative data.
Now quantitative data has to do with quantities, things that you would count or measure.
Qualitative data has to do with things that you could describe.
So think about plants and how you can describe them, and what kind of descriptions you might want to gather
that can help you draw your conclusions.
Alright so another element of science that we need to take into close consideration
when designing this experiment would be variables.
Now variables are things that can change in an experiment
or cause change in an experiment.
So the variable that we're focusing on observing
would be plant growth.
We call that the Dependent Variable.
And the variable that we're going to be manipulating
would be the soil type, and we'd call that the Independent Variable.
But, there are lots of other variables to consider
and to what we call control.
We want to control those variables.
Think, other things that influence plant growth.
So you want to make a list of all of the things you can think of that influence plant growth
and make sure that those are the same for each of your planters.
That way, if you notice a difference in plant growth
you could be more confident in saying that,
oh, it's got to be soil type.
Otherwise if you don't control those variables, that could influence your results.
And with that, you have all the information and resources you need to conduct this experiment at home.
But it's going to take some time, so it's a great opportunity to explore the importance of
soil fertility out in nature.
And to do that I'm going to give you a couple challenges.
First, I'm going to list a couple land animals
or, terrestrial animals.
And I want you to find a link between them and the importance of soil fertility.
One animal would be the black-capped chickadee.
Another animal would be the grey wolf.
Now I want you to press pause.
Do a little research.
Find those connections.
Then press play and we'll compare notes.
So, even though these are two very different animals
I'm sure you found a common pattern.
The process is essentially working your way down the food web
to the producers, or plants, and those plants requiring a certain level of soil fertility.
So for the black-capped chickadee
that is an omnivore. It eats both plants and animals.
Plants in the form of seeds and berries.
And for animals often times they would be insects.
And those insects are acquiring plants in one way, shape, or form.
For the grey wolf,
it feeds on a number of types of animals
very large down to very small.
So example would range from bison, deer, elk, moose,
all the way down to rodents.
All those examples are of herbivores,
animals that eat strictly plants.
And those plants of course, requiring soil fertility.
But it's not just for food.
The importance of soil fertility goes beyond that because
all these animals, all the terrestrial animals
in one way, shape, or form require plants for habitat and shelter.
Where is a deer going to hide if there are no plants around?
So no matter which way you look at it
any terrestrial animal is going to depend on plants
in order to survive and those plants are going to depend on soil fertility.
Alright, so for the last challenge we're going to look at, this time,
aquatic organisms. In this case, one of the species of Pacific Salmon,
and the importance of soil fertility in a terrestrial or land environment.
And not only that. Also how the presence of salmon can benefit the soil fertility.
So to help you out in your research, I want you to look up
the term Riparian Zone.
Maybe pair that search with salmon and that'll point you in the right direction.
Another helpful hint is, if you don't know already,
look up what happens to Pacific Salmon after they spawn or reproduce
and that could help you as well.
Now go ahead and press pause.
Conduct your research.
Press play.
And you can see how you did.
So hopefully in your research you found that
a riparian zone is an area of land that immediately borders a body of water.
In this case, a river.
Now, the plant community in riparian zones
are critical for salmon survival.
Those plants provide shade in the summer time to help keep the water cold.
Salmon really require cold water.
They provide habitat. Overhanging branches protect the salmon from predators.
The branches and logs that fall in the water provide additional cover.
Plants can draw out excess water and prevent flooding and erosion.
So those salmon require clear water.
So they help out on that front.
And these plants can absorb pollutants.
So they help keep the water clean.
So having cold, clear, clean water, and great habitat is critical for salmon.
Now what do salmon do for the soil quality in a riparian zone?
Well hopefully you found that after Pacific Salmon spawn, or reproduce, they die.
And when they die, they decompose
and that provides great fertilizer for the soil in these riparian zones.
It really increases the soil fertility
which allows those plants to grow and thrive
and in turn provide all those benefits for salmon.
[whistling]
Oh, hello again. Welcome back.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this lesson.
I wish you success on your experiment and I
hope you learned a few things about soil fertility
both at home and out in nature.
So with that, this is Dan The Fish Man signing out.
And I hope we can Science again soon.
[whistling]
[music]
