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PicturePerfect wrote:Is there not a 2014 wiki for this event yet? Because this year it's about 'marine, coral reefs, and estuaries', and the wiki still shows last year's.

Nope. No one's edited it yet. .-.

Okay, it's been a while, and I need help with the phosphorus cycle. What do I need to know? Same with nitrogen cycle, I guess. It's not on the rules sheet other than "nutrient cycling," which I'm assuming is it. .-. I don't know. Like, for example, what do I need to know about phosphates? Why are they important? How are they cycled? All of this stuff. It's confusing me.

Tips please

Hopefully it's mostly IDing... I'm quite good at that, apparently.

And also:

• Is there going to be IDing on macroorganisms/those bugs from last year, or is it just like fish, coral, etc?
• Do we need to know about specific estuaries?
• Actually, what do we need to know besides IDing?

Good tips for the salinometer

PicturePerfect wrote:Hopefully it's mostly IDing... I'm quite good at that, apparently.

And also:

• Is there going to be IDing on macroorganisms/those bugs from last year, or is it just like fish, coral, etc?
• Do we need to know about specific estuaries?
• Actually, what do we need to know besides IDing?

Haha if only. ID is one of the easiest parts, but it should only be about 1/3 of the test.
1. There really shouldn't be any ID from last year, but at the invite I just went to a week ago, there was a caddisfly among the otherwise 100% marine ID section. So, it might be a good idea to look over them just in case, but I wouldn't stress over it too much.
2. If by specific estuaries, you mean the types based on classification, then YES. If, however, you mean a specific estuary in the world, then not really. I have examples for each type on my notes, but I don't think I've ever actually seen it on a test.
3. I'm going to assume you mean part 2 of the rules for water quality, but if you meant the entire thing.... read the rules. For part 2, you need to know ID, general ecology, feeding habits, and indicator importance of the species in the table. You also need to know pretty muh everything there is to know about coral.

Hopefully this helps!

P.S. To the person who is asking about the salinometer, I am definitely NOT a good person to help with that. But I think there has been lots of discussion about it in the past two years, so go read through the thread for 2012 and 2013 Water Quality, and see if that helps. Sorry.

caseyotis wrote:Okay, it's been a while, and I need help with the phosphorus cycle. What do I need to know? Same with nitrogen cycle, I guess. It's not on the rules sheet other than "nutrient cycling," which I'm assuming is it. .-. I don't know. Like, for example, what do I need to know about phosphates? Why are they important? How are they cycled? All of this stuff. It's confusing me.

You probably need to know the same information for the phosphorus cycle as nitrogen cycle. I believe the cycle is in the training handout somewhere, and if you're confused about how it works, there are probably some excellent tutorials online if you google it. Phosphates are important because they're generally a limited nutrient. Very similar to nitrates, they are usually in fertilizer, so when you get agricultural runoff or similar, you get a bunch of phosphates into the water (and nitrates). Because phosphates are usually limited, a sudden increase will cause a dramatic increase in the algae population (algal bloom), which then leads to lots of problems which I'm too lazy to type but the biggest one is depleted oxygen. In other words, phosphates are very similar to nitrates in terms of their impact on the ecosystem.
Hope this helps!

Sorry for the double post, I didn't realize this was unanswered.

I am relatively new to science olympiad and water quality, and I am being paired with a very experienced partner for my next event- What are the things I should study? (As in sources (books, websites)) I've taken AP environmental last year, if that helps at all. I don't want to be totally leeching off of her experience on the event.

Can someone tell me a bit more on coliform bacteria

Hello, I am new to Science Olympiad, and I'm really confused since I haven't asked my teacher for help,
what do I need to study for division B/C specifically? IN other words, what exactly do I need to know for the competitions?

Can someone also please explain the sulfur cycle to me?