Eco Towers Observation #1 ! 3/30/11

This is our eco tower on observation day 1. The animals that we originally put in it was 2 fish, 4 crickets, and about 3 worms. As far as we know the worms are still alive, but unfortunately our 2 fish died :( a couple (2) of our crickets are still living. I think the resaon our worms and crickets are still alive is beacuse the top part of the eco tower has alot of oxygen for them to breath and grasses/soil for them to eat. Our fish simply died because they are gold fish, gold fish never last long. Plus they are not made for being in a small closed container like our eco tower.

Or bean plants that we planted in the soil are growing great! They are super tall and are touching the top of the bottle. The roots of the bean plants are going down into the water... about half way to the bottom. Also more algae is growing off the algae we put in there.

I think our plants turned out really good because we are just really smart and know what plants need.

Our water is very cloudy now that the fish are dead inside of it. It used to be clean and clear and a lovely play pool for little Ping and Pong. Now its a dirty watery graveyard of death.

One very unpredicted thing that happened to our eco tower is that as our fish floats there belly up, the roots from our bean plant grew into the fish! Thats what Emily said. I think its so nasty, but also cool in an awkward way. Poor fishy :( .

I predict that our bean plants will grow really big on the last day and that the water will be dirtier.

Eco Towers Sealing Day

     

                                                                       


  The Eco Tower project, we did it to experiment with an ecosystem in a bottle. To see first hand how different cycles really work in real life. My group members are Sierra, Emily, and Chris. Sierra brought in the beautiful pink pretty duck tape! Emily brought in the soil, rocks, and one of the bottles (the bottom bottle), Chris brought in the top bottle, the bean seeds, and algae (but the algae got old so we got new algae). I brought in Ping & Pong, The two wonderfully amazing small goldfish. Unfortunatly, Mrs. Richardson informed me and Emily this morning that there was a death in the eco tower, thats when i knew. Pong was such a young fish, he didnt deserve to die this young. The reason for his death has not been confirmed. But we think its because there was not enough carbon or nitrogen in the bottle.

R.I.P Pong :(

         Anyways; on the bright side, our beans are growing GREAT! The roots are going through the cloth in between our 2 bottles. It was amazing looking, how the roots just started growing down there... It was just so... wierd. Our cricket was doing good, and there were some good worms in the soil eating about the dirt.

      There are 3 cycles that keeps our ecosystem alive.The water cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle. If it wasn't for those 3 cycles our ecosystem would not stand a chance.

Yesterday we went outside with rulers and thermometers to take temperatures and measure things! Mrs. Richardson put us all into partner groups. I got partnered up with Riley, who made a wonderful photographer and stuff :)



We put the ruler and thermometer down on the blacktop and the temperature was 20 degrees celcius.



This is when we had to take the temperature of bare soil. It was 16 degrees celcius.

The measurement of this grass was 10cm and the temperature was 17 degrees celcius



The shrubs were 71 centimeters high and 14 degrees celcius



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The tree was 8 1/2 centimeters wide and was 13 degrees celcius.



Signs of Spring

 

On March 2nd we all went outside to look for signs of spring. One of the first signs we saw were green leaves growing from a tree that lost all its leaves from winter, behind the tree we saw trash from litter bugs i assume. We heard a humming noise from a machine at the highschool, a birds "ca caww", and a train on the train tracks. I felt pretty warm, the little bit of wind was kind of chilly.

The second sign of spring that we found was a little pollen flowers that we just found out the name of. They are called Alder Catkins. next to the pond, i think this is a sign of spring because there is always pollen out during the spring time. As we found this we heard wind blowing shaking the branches on trees, and another birds "ca caww". I felt a little chilly. Warm but refreshing cold wind... if that makes sense.

The third sign was a butterfly flying peacefully through the woods, and a red branch on a tree. We heard loud beeps from some kind of vehicle and once again... the wind blowing leaves. I felt kind of hot, warmer than when we first went out there. The sun felt good :)

The fourth sign we found was in front of the school flowers were blooming on the tree. Emily said they were tree buds. We heard music in somebodys car really loud and cars driving by on the road and in the school parking lot.

At site #1 I heard everybody talking amongst themselves, I saw a cute little yellow flower growing from the griund, & I felt warm and delightful

At site #2 I heard leaves, and everybody talking

at this sight i saw a humungouse hole in a tree that looks as if a woodpecker has been there peckin away at it. it was pretty interesting.

At site #3 I heard birds above me in the sky making thier wierd bird noises that sound like "caa kaaaaaa!" I saw fungus on a tree i was like ew, and i felt kind of cold!

At site #4 I heard leaves,everyone around me talking and all of us walking around in the dead leaves.

 I saw a treestump with a half eaten acorn on it and some leftovers from where the squirrel did not finsh eating his acorn.

 

Observation day 5

Site 1
Organsism - Snail
Species- Mullosk
Population- All snails
Community- Tree stumps and trees
Ecosystem- Very sunny! There was a little bit of wind though.
I saw alot of leaves around then all of a sudden kasey showed us the little teeny snail that Tangie caught! It was so cute! i kind of just wanted to kiss it. But i knew that would be very nasty
As i was daydreaming about the little snail i realized it was very nice outside, warm, little breeze, sun shining.... It was very nice out.
I heard kids all around talking and walking in the woods. The wind was blowing the leaves and it sounded beautiful.

 

Site 2
Organism- Salamander
Species- Amphibian
Population- All salamanders
Community- Under leaves, in creeks, moist enviorments.
Ecosystem- Still very sunny, nice feeling day. Started to get hotter and hotter the longer we stayed outside.
I saw leaves all over the place, and i heard leaves being squished by people feet as they were walking.

Site 3
Organism- Crayfish
Species- Cambarus tenebrosus
Population- Crayfish
Community- In creeks, under rocks
Ecosystem- It was very warm when this crayfish was found. It was a little baby one. I saw lots of mud and wet leaves around this creek, and also i felt hot and i felt scared that i would fall and get my clothes dirty!

Site 4
Organism- Frog
Species- Amphibian
Population- Frogs
Community- Creeks, woods, ponds
Ecosystem- By the time we got to site 4 it was getting hotter outside. i saw a creek , looks like the creek we seen earlier that day. I heard the creek water running and people talking.

Site Observation Day four

Animal Kingdom- We went outside where the pond is and we found some geese. They were floating casually in the water. It was quite windy outside I think they were just floating with the wind. It felt nice out, when the wind wasn't blowing. The second animal we seen was a little green grasshopper that Tangie caught. It was very cute and nice... well i think it was nice. It hopped very fastly and blended into the grass so it was hard to find whenever it hopped away. The third animal was a cray fish in the creek, the sun was gleaming down into the water making it easier to see the little fellow. The crayfish looked very interesting.

Plant Kingdom- As we were walking around the pond me and Emily spotted a little tree blowing in the wind in the middle of a pile of rocks. We thought it was interesting because the little tree looked really lonely and sad. We thought if we took a picture and blogged about it that it might feel better. So i am doing this to make the little lonely tree not so sad! After that we started walking down a path, i seen this regular sized tree. I don't know why but it caught my attention. The wind was blowing heavily... moving the branches from back and forth. It looked scary in a way. It looked suspicious. You know that face you make when you get caught doing something your not supposed to be doing ? Thats what the tree looked like it was doing.. as wierd as that may sound, its true. The third plant we saw was a teeny weeny little yellow flower. It was about the size of a quarter. It looked really pretty except I was scared to pick it up because i didnt want to kill it and also because it looked like it might have bugs in it.


Fungus- As we were walking through the woods looking for a fungus, me and Emily came across a mushroom. We were going to take pictures but right before our eyes another classmate(not saying any names) walked past and stepped on the mushroom. It was totally squished and looked like white squishy stuff. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of certain species of higher fungi.