Mateusz Borowiecki
Athavan Balendran
Marcus Katz
Eesh Dadheech
Hypothesis
If the ground is not maintained, then there will be more
and bigger species of plants because none of them will
be killed my technology such as mowers and weed
killers.
------------------------------------------------------------------So we believe that an area that is regularly mowed will
have fewer types of plant life than an area that is not
regularly mowed, since mowing prevents the growth of
large plants, and the agitation caused by mowing may
adversely affect other plants.
Experiment Design
 We will use eight (8) identical hula hoops (diameter:
72 centimeters) to mark out our test areas.
 We will have four (4) samples for both mowed and unmowed space.
 Our test areas will both have more or less the same
amount of sunlight and will be as close to each other as
possible.
 Since no-one in our group is a botanist, we will
distinguish separate types of plants purely on how they
look.
Variables
Independent
 Mowing/Location. Half of our experiments will be in a mowed area, and
half will be in an un-mowed area.
Dependent
 Number of types of plants. We believe that mowing directly affects how
many different types of plants are present in an area.
Constants
 Sunlight. We will try to choose areas with similar levels of light.
 Size of area we search. For both mowed and un-mowed, we will search the
area covered by four identical hula hoops.
 Search method. For all eight test areas, we will search them using the same
method; that is, have our whole group search the hula hoop while another
writes down what they find.
 Climate and temperature. The areas are relatively the close and therefore
these factors remain the same. {And temperature remained close to the
same in the 45 minutes}
Experiment Diagram
Unmowed Area
Hula Hoop
(Unmowed)
Baseball Diamond Fence (separates mowed and unmowed areas.)
Hula
Hoop
(Mowed)
Mowed Area
Results!
Hula Hoop 1
Hula Hoop 2
Hula Hoop 3
Hula Hoop 4
Mowed Area
4 Plant Types
5 Plant Types
4 Plant Types
4 Plant Types
Unmowed Area
7 Plant Types
8 Plant Types
8 Plant Types
7 Plant Types
Number of Plant Types
Present
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Hula Hoop 1
Hula Hoop 2
Hula Hoop 3
Hula Hoop 4
Mowed Area
Unmowed Area
Area/ No. of Hula Hoop
Conclusion
 Based on the test results, our group believes that mowing does
indeed adversely affect the diversity of plant life in an area.
 Looking at the data, we can see that, on average, the un-mowed
areas have 3 or 4 more types of plants than mowed areas.
 We believe that our findings are much like the actual population.
Just looking at an un-mowed field, one can see much more plant
life than on the average front lawn that has been regularly
mowed.
 If we were to repeat this experiment, the one thing we would
definitely change would be having more testing areas. We only
had a total of eight this time, and we believe that if we had had
more test areas, we would have achieved much greater accuracy.
Maintained Lawn Area 1
Maintained Lawn Area 2
Maintained Lawn Area 3
Maintained Lawn Area 4
Unmaintained Lawn Area 1
Unmaintained Lawn Area 2
Unmaintained Lawn Area 3
Unmaintained Lawn Area 4