Mass Research Thread and Questions

[HalfFrozen]

How long do you imagine a paper to be?

Well, it all depends on what the minimum amount of pages is.. lol

When I was in High School, they would let us know at least a 5 page minimum...

That can also dictate what you want to cover.. if it is a short paper, then do something easy... if its long.. talk about a few extra things?

 

[Fishfriend1]

Well, it all depends on what the minimum amount of pages is.. lol

When I was in High School, they would let us know at least a 5 page minimum...

That can also dictate what you want to cover.. if it is a short paper, then do something easy... if its long.. talk about a few extra things?

Well... at least 25 minutes of talking to the class and chosen judges, 20 page powerpoint min (for notes and reference), and, aprox, 10-15 pages of sheer info. Also proof this took you all year to build up and work on (which is why I was going to pace it with my 75gal tank build) and pics and whatnot. There's a whole little site for the project here: xhttp://rieger-sgp.ning.com/

 

[Lab_Rat]

I would write a paper on the effects of mass breeding fish and why there are so many different types of species today.

Like anything else in the world... it all came from one ancient common ancestor.

Fish are not the same as dogs. Humans did not create species. Humans have created hybrids. Humans have bred for deformities. We have not created new species (unless a FH aficionado wants to claim FH are their own species).

An interesting project may be the plasticity of cichlid genetics, leading to easy hybridization. You could focus on the diversification of rift lake cichlids since their evolution has been rapid and is still occurring. You could highlight how humans are impacting the rift lake cichlids, with the introduction of the nile perch and habitat destruction. That all might be too much for a HS project though.

If you want to follow the progress of establishing your tank, I'd focus your project on the nitrogen cycle. You can go very in depth and it's a topic that not a lot of people (outside of fishkeepers) know about. You could compare what happens in a fish tank to what happens in a pond to what happens in a large lake.

 

[jpierce3]

You would be amazed at how little time that is and not very much space to put the whole gambit of fish keeping into.

I would get specific. Pick a subject that is a very limited part of fish keeping and focus on that. I mean you may bore some kids, but you could talk all 25 minutes just on water chemistry.

I would try to make it interesting. Water chemistry as it relates to aquarium fish and plants and how it parallels nature. Or work on a specific breeding program for a species of fish and how spawning in captivity might differ and/or how you mimic nature in the breeding process. There of course is a whole array of genetics topics you could use. Don't know if you have enough time to experiment and line breed guppies for instance. Marmorkrebs are always an interesting topic.

 

[Fishfriend1]

Well, I have mollies but not enough time to line breed them. Since I am following my tank construction, I may focus on the nitrogen cycle and water chemistry aspects of fishkeeping more then the fish part, though I will have little bits about fish and hardiness in it.

 

[jpappy789]

What is the project supposed to be based on...research or actual data?

 

[Fishfriend1]

What is the project supposed to be based on...research or actual data?

Both, need 7 research sources and a decent amount of data too.

 

[jpierce3]

First start off with a 5 or 6 thesis statements and narrow it down from there. Then make sure you have enough material to back it up. And a plan on how you will do your project to collect the right data.

This is for High School, correct, not college? And you have a year? Your project with the tank needs to reflect what you are writing about so you will be collecting your own data?

Yeah genetics wise, I don't think I would use mollies. P. reticulatus are good because they possess genetics that have been researched in depth already. If you look at wild specimens from Trinidad (the original collect spot), all of the fish have different color patterns. This is interesting because it is the same genetic principles as the human eye. I don't know a lot about genetics, so it would be an interesting topic to me

Water chem will probably be good. Lots of meticulous record keeping. You also have a lot of research you will be able to find and use from other people like, pH and alkalinity relations, O2 and CO2 diffusion/dissolution rates, pH and carbonic acid relations. Oh and whatever you do, don't use the phrases "off gas" or "gas off." Use the terms diffuse and dissolve.

Wish I could have done a project like this in High School. I had to write a 20-25 page paper on a chosen literary subject my Junior year. I was assigned Le Morte d'Arthur. At least my Senior year I got to choose. So I took Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the scientific philosophies of Dr. Frankenstein and his actions related to modern scientific philosophies. That was an easy A.

 

[dundadundun]

will you have access to a computer and a projector during your 25 minutes? if so, you could do one heck of a power point presentation to guide you through your speech.

in that case i would take "fish are awesome and by far my favorite thing in the world" and show that enthusiasm by doing a "there are all these kinds of tanks to choose from. i started here... and why". title could be akin to "the diversity of todays aquarium and why a new aquarist should start out simple". everything in your paper/project could be brief introductions into each type of fish tank and how they work. for your references you can touch on the nitrogen cycle, salinity etc. ... whatever defines the initial hurdles of each step as you get into something a bit more difficult. this way you could certainly include pictures of some very nice tanks to keep pique interest throughout your lecture and you can keep everything on a very basic level through the whole thing making it easy for yourself ... all you'd have to do is search out references for things you kind of already know and double check some of your information. you can round the whole thing out by saying how you started out simple as you'd suggest any aquarist do, but you plan on exploring the diversity of the hobby (re-visiting your title in a way) by moving up to fowlr and maybe eventually a full on reef tank.

doing it this way you've got a lot of illustrations you can visit for each type, from cold water to tropical to fowlr to f/o to planted high tech, to low tech to plain old fresh water to paludarium to riparium to brackish to breeding to freshwater species that need brackish for breeding. this should keep you talking well past your time without having to get too technical. should be easy enough since it's very likely that nobody other than you will have much of a clue anyway. should be a very easy A for you. look at it that way and do what you're comfortable with. once you think you've met your quota, go back and make sure you have enough references. insert where necessary.

good luck, travis.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

how it mimics the wild

nothing we do in the hobby mimics the wild