IB ESS Practical DCP - Study of Compost and DiAmmonium Phosphate

by ishaan463 (student)

Ishaan Khanna Candidate Number: 002603-011

ESS Practical DCP

Study of Compost and DAP

Research Question: Is there a difference between the amount of water Compost can hold and the amount of water DiAmmonium Phosphate holds?

Hypothesis: 1) DAP is holds more water than compost.

2) Compost holds more water than DAP.

Materials Required:

6 beakers

Microwave oven

Soil and DiAmmonium Phosphate

Method: First we put 50gm of soil in 6 beakers. Then in 3 of the beakers we add 50 gm of compost and the other 3 beakers we add 50 gm of DiAmmonium Phosphate. We the fill each beaker with 20 ml of water and leave it for 1 day. The next day we measure the weight of the beaker and then we microwave it. Then again we measure the weight of the beaker to measure how much water was lost during the microwave.

Repeat it 6 times to find a good degree of accuracy.

2 min 110 degrees under micro convection

Variables:

Input Variable : DAP, Compost
Controlled Variable: Weight of Compost, Weight of DAP, Type of soil,
Output variable: Water

Raw Data:

Processed Data:

I assume that the data is normally distributed and I shall now perform a T test.

Null hypothesis: There is no significant difference between the two means.

Alternate Hypothesis: There exists a significant difference between the amount of water compost can hold and the amount of water ...

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Repeat it 6 times to find a good degree of accuracy.

2 min 110 degrees under micro convection

Variables:

Input Variable : DAP, Compost
Controlled Variable: Weight of Compost, Weight of DAP, Type of soil,
Output variable: Water

Raw Data:

Processed Data:

I assume that the data is normally distributed and I shall now perform a T test.

Null hypothesis: There is no significant difference between the two means.

Alternate Hypothesis: There exists a significant difference between the amount of water compost can hold and the amount of water DAP holds.

Step 1: The difference between the means of the two sets of data.

Mean of (Soil+Compost) – Mean of(Soil+DAP)= 0.155

Step 2: Square the Standard deviation of Soil Sample A set of data and divide by the number of pieces of data.

{(1.293708)^2}/6 =0.278947

Step 3: Square the Standard deviation of Soil Sample B set of data and divide by the number of pieces of data.

{(0.641318)^2}/6 =0.068548

Step 4: Add the results from step 2 and step 3.

0.278947+0.068548=0.347495

Step 5: Find the square root of the result from step 4.

= 0.589487

Step 6: (Difference in means)/ (Result from step 5)

0.155/0.589487= 0.26294

T Value= 0.2

Degrees of freedom: Critical value for 28 degrees of freedom when P is 0.05 (calculated from table based on Zar). Since the T value is greater than the Critical value we can be 95% confident that the difference between the mean percolation rate between soil sample A and soil sample B is statistically significant. In this case the null hypothesis is rejected In favor of alternate hypothesis.

Discussion: There may have been water already present in Soil or compost. We could have done the experiment with just one type of soil from one location.

Evaluation: It seems that DAP loses more water than Compost does. This could probably be because DAP is a chemical fertilizer which is artificially made. Its purpose is to help the plants grow faster and stronger, not hold water. Compost on the other hand is natural and almost as powerful as DAP. But the good part is that it holds water.

Conclusion: It makes more sense to use Compost rather than DAP for the growth of plants and crop as it holds more water and loses less due to heat.