Map with polygon and written description of location. Brief general site description. Describe the ecosystem in terms of plants, climate, soils, and land use.

You will soon be assigned to complete a visit to a site of your choosing as a field lab. That field lab will look at aspects of the 5 ecosystem components we have been studying: plants, water, minerals, soil and animals. The main objective of the lab will be to collect information (observational and empirical), and use it to make connections among the components of the field site.
Any field study begins with collecting existing information and data to get the “lay of the land” so to speak. This week’s lab will guide you in doing this.
1. Bird’s Eye View: Using Google Earth, maps, or ArcGIS, you will print out a map with a site area polygon clearly defined.
2. Climate: Using a climate data source such as PRISM to an external site., determine the average monthly precipitation and temperature and plot them on a graph.
3. Soil Information: Using Web Soil Survey (Links to an external site.) you will gather maps and associated information for the following:
for the 3 most dominant soil types: % clay; % sand; % silt; % organic matter [submission: maps and table]
determine areas of highest water storage and cation exchange capacity [submission: maps and list of areas/soil types with highest]

Report Submission
Summarize in report format the information gathered. Here is a report outline to guide you.
1. Cover page stating “RNG121 Field Lab Prep: Field Site location, Climate and Key Soil Properties”. Your name and date should be included.
2. Table of Contents
3. Sections:
location and general description: Map with polygon and written description of location. Brief general site description. Describe the ecosystem in terms of plants, climate, soils, and land use.
climate: data table and graph from Excel. Brief summary of what the graph is conveying.
physical soil properties: for each soil property include the map and brief summary of required associated information:
for the 3 most dominant soil types: % clay; % sand; % silt; % organic matter [submission: maps and table]
determine areas of highest water storage and cation exchange capacity [submission: maps and list of areas/soil types with highest]
4. Works Cited: Make sure to at least cite the mapping app, climate source, and Web Soil Survey.

Website links:
Web Soil Survey: https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx
PRISM : https://prism.oregonstate.edu/

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