Yeast Eutrophication Lab

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The results shown in table 1 clearly show that when the volume of yeast is increased in the milk solution, so does the rate of oxygen depletion and therefore the rate of eutrophication. It shows that when 2mL of yeast solution was added it took 32.86 minutes on average for the milk to be depleted of oxygen, while it took only 7.46 minutes on average for the 10mL of yeast to use up the oxygen present.
Figure 1 shows the minimum, maximum and average length of time it took for each solution to be depleted of oxygen. The scatter in the values suggests the presence of random errors.
This is representative of how eutrophication works in an aquatic environment. It shows that the greater the number of blue-green algae then the faster the oxygen depletion …show more content…

A random error is caused by any factor which randomly affects the amount of scatter in the data. An increase in sample size allows averages to be calculated which reduces the effects of these random errors. By removing outliers in the data, the effect of random errors can be further minimised. A large amount of scatter in results indicated low precision and a large number of random errors. Some possible random errors in this experiment may have arisen when measuring the 12mL of milk solution for each test tube; some may have had slightly more and others slightly less than 12mL. Another random error could have occurred when adding 4 drops of methylene blue, some drops may have contained more liquid than others, meaning some test tubes may have contained less methylene blue indicator than …show more content…

By taking a sample size of 5, while still not particularly large it decreased the effect of random errors as an average was able to be calculated. Another strength was using the same size test tubes throughout the experiment. This made sure the surface area and exposure to oxygen in the air was kept consistent which would allow for more accurate results. A weakness of this experiment was that it was difficult to distinguish the exact point when the methylene blue had disappeared. As the top part of the test tube was exposed to oxygen in the air, the milk solution never went completely white and there was a blue ring on top of each test tube which stayed blue. It was also difficult to put the exact same amount of methylene blue into each test tube because you are not actually measuring it but rather just placing drops into the test tubes which is a little difficult to

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