Experimental Design Diagram

Research question: If I keep leaves in different substrates from my house and my location, will the disintegration rates of the leaves be different? If they are, what does that say about the different soil environments? - I am trying to find out what environments have an advantage in having leaves as fertilizer.

At my location, I can find mature hardwood, evergreen, large American beech, maple, eastern hemlock, oak, and elm trees. That's a lot of leaves. The oak trees are right by the path so I decided to use leaves from that particular type. I am aware that leaves can produce fertilizer for the soil there, which, in turn, improves the trees' health as well. When leaves break down, they turn into rich organic matter that helps the trees and the soil. It also protects the ground and keeps the moister in when all of the leaves are covering it!

Data table

The factors that are controlled in this experiment is the amount of substrate, temp of substrate, the type of leaf, the container in which the leaf & substrate is in, and amount of water/rain.

Materials needed!

5 containers
5 oak (or whatever type) leaves
Tin foil (for covering the containers to protect from rain if project is outside)
1 measuring cup (1 cup)
Small scale to weigh leaves
Notebook (if you want to record data or trace leaves like me :P )
Phone/camera
Paper
Able access to location with wood chips other than your house, as well as access to ash

I predict that if I put the oak leaf in the location's dirt, the leaf will disintegrate faster than in the dirt and from my house because the roots from the location's dirt will take the leaf's nutrients as it disintegrates. However, I predict that the wood chips from my house will help the leaf disintegrate faster than in the wood chips from the location's space because the wood chips from my house are significantly damper. I have no idea what to expect from the ash 😁.

Step by Step Procedure:

1. Go to desired location and choose 5 leaves of one type of tree, along with 2 cups of wood chips and dirt from area (don't forget to air dry leaves for 24 hours on a table, and weigh them with a small scale before next step!!!)

2. Take materials home and grab 2 cups of wood chips and dirt from behind pine trees, along with ash from fire pit

3. Put one cup of each substrate in different containers, put a leaf on top, then cover the leaf with the last cup of substrate that you have

4. (this step is repeated every time data is taken - 24 hours before data is being recorded - pour a tbsp of water into the substrate)

5. Take out leaves and weigh with small scale

6. (this step is repeated every time data is taken) use formula: Mass loss (%) = (Initial Mass - Final Mass/Initial Mass) x 100 and record results in data table