Pollution+plus+plants=?(INQUIRY+PROJECT)

By: Adrian Magadia

This is about the effect of habitat destruction on plant life. The independent variable is habitat destruction(more specifically pollution) which will be affecting the dependent variable. Habitat destruction is a main threat to biodiversity and biodiversity is varies in different parts of the world. Well that is all destroyed by different causes, naturally or human made. This will affect plants and animals. However, this project will be focusing on how plants are involved. There are different kinds of habitat destruction and they are forest fires, pollution, deforestation, lands being cleared for crops, and the building of cities and roads. Habitat destruction can endanger plant species. Pollution which is the independent variable has many kinds, for instance air pollution and water pollution, When people cut down trees for example mohagony, it doesn't completely destroys the population of the plant but it degrades it. This could happen to all plants and won't only affect plants but will begin to affect other organisms that depend on the plant for either food or a home. When organisms don't have a home they will either flee to another habitat and negatively affect that ecosystems food chain. Organisms might just die off during habitat destruction. This will eventually lead to that organism not being very common and humans who hunt that oranism for food won't have any food. So that chain reaction of the plant affecting other organisms and then affecting humans will put humans in a tight situation where they have to find a new food source. Forest fires can be man made orcan happen naturally. Some maniac can set a whole forest on fire and endager a species of plant or forest fuels could be drying and surface fires can start. The dependent variable which is plant life will play a big role in this project. A plant uses photosynthesis to provide them with glucose. Photosynthesis can be put as 6H2O+6CO2=C6H12O6+6O2. Plants need light energy, CO2, and H20 to make glucose. One way habitat destruction can have a relationship with plant life is when smog covers the sun and plants will not receive sun light and die. Another way can be when humans cut down trees however, humans only cut the big trees and leave the smaller plants. These plants may burn because of too much sunlight hitting them because the biiger trees cover them enough to provide them with the necessary light. A variable that can affect the outcome can be the temperature or the kind of dirt that is being used during experiments.These should be constants remaining the same. The dependent variable will be measured by the physical characterizations( if plant is lossing leaves, burned, etc.)

Resources: animals.about.com/od/h/g/habitat-destruction.htm, [|www.nwf.org/wildlife/wildlife-conservation/habitat-loss.aspx], biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/photosyn.ht