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The graph shown above represents the average amount of moisture in soil samples obtained from hilltops and valleys in Valleyview Nature Park. The biggest difficulty I had was figuring out how to create different standard deviation bars on Excel. I decided to organize this data in a figure for ease of interpretation; the rest of my data is summarized in a table not included in this submission.
The average soil moisture content in hilltop samples was 21.95% +/- 1.03%. The average soil moisture content in valley samples was 27.20% +/- 2.22%. Due to limitations of laboratory access and weather, I had to collect the soil samples approximately seven hours after precipitation. Therefore, moisture levels were much higher than I initially anticipated. That being said, my results appear to support what I expected in that soil moisture content was higher in valleys than hilltops.
