Back to the Drawing Board

Experimental design is just that, experimental. You may start off with one plan but after some discussion and testing in the field the plan will need to be modified. We started off with our initial experimental design in Figure 2 and have evolved to our design showcased in Figure 4. As the project moves forward the design will evolve with it and our final product may look completely different than what we first created, but that is all part of research!

There are several elements that critical for the study and will always be included in our experimental designs no matter what we decide is the set up. The first is the heating probe. This probe is what will heat the soil 4 degrees Celsius above its current average temperature. The second is the temperature probes. These probes will surround the heating probe to monitor temperature of the soil and make sure there is even heating along the plot. The third are the gas wells. These well will be stuck into the soil at different depths to measure the levels of carbon dioxide being emitted from these depths from the soil. The design is bound to change over time, but these three elements will always be the main components to the research set up. Keep checking in to see how the experimental design progresses!

Figure 1: Initial plot distribution at the Lyon Arboretum, planning for electrical wiring and communication of the sensors to the data logger box, which collects and stores all the data.

Figure 2: The initial design thought for the heating probes, temperature probes and gas wells

Figure 3: The second heating probe and temperature sensor design. More temperature probes were added at different radius's from the heating probe.

Figure 4: The most current design for heating probes and temperature sensors. More temperature probes were added at each cardinal direction from the heating probe to determine a radius of heating.