Dear Mr. Magill,
As I told you in our conversation on the telephone, I've been studying the bird populations around Mono Lake. This is a lake in Northern California. The lake has been drying up and getting smaller. As a result, Mono Lake has become a salt lake. As the level of the lake falls, the concentration of salt, or salinity has increased. This environmental change might be affecting the organisms in the area. For instance, the lake has small organisms called brine shrimp. The birds that migrate to the lake depend on them. If the lake continues to get saltier, either because the lake is drying up or fresh water flowing into the lake is being reduced, the salty aquatic environment might have an effect on the shrimp.
I would be most grateful if your class chose to help me out on a research study. I'm trying to figure out if the salinity is an environmental factor that's affecting the hatching of Mono Lake brine shrimp eggs. If so, I've sent you some brine shrimp eggs from Mono Lake to use for research.
Would your class be able to help to design an experiment that would contribute to my studies?
Sincerely,
Dr. Flint Jackson
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