Fish are sensitive to many environmental variables: dissolved oxygen, light, temperature, pH, clarity of water, food supply, presence of predators, etc. Fish will be attracted to different locations in a lake, based on its mix of variables.

Imagine you want to conduct an experiment to understand how just one of these variables differs in a local lake, depending on its depth. This lake reaches a depth of 17 meters. For this activity:

Pick a variable that might change as you go deeper in the lake on a given day.
Do a little research on that variable to determine how you might measure it in a lake.
Use the template below to outline an experiment to investigate this variable in the lake by depth. For each part, simply answer the question in parentheses to create your outline.
Type your response to each field in the space below that field:

Title: (Enter a brief, descriptive title. Hint: Sometimes it’s best to do this last.)

Purpose: (Why are you doing this experiment?)

Hypothesis: (What do you predict from this experiment and why?)

Procedure/Method: (How will you specifically carry out your experiment to test your prediction?)

Observations: (What specifically would you look for and record?)

Data analysis: (With this kind of data, what would be the best way to present it?)

Conclusion: [No need to enter anything here for now.]

References: (List any references you used to design the experiment. Note that for a full experiment write-up you’d also list any references you used while carrying out the experiment or in analyzing your results.)