Wednesday, July 18-Ruth

I am concerned that the predator, spider Albert E, is no longer living. The ecocolumn is very humid and the interior walls are covered with condensation so it is difficult to observe clearly, but it appears that Albert E may have departed. Is this due to a lack of food source? Too much humidity?

Although sluggish, the three fish are still alive and swimming. What kind of nutrients are entering the aquatic chamber? Is more water needed to drain through the decomposition chamber to add nutrients to the bottom chamber.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - Catherine

Today we placed banana mush into the decomposition chamber. Fruit flies should develop soon. I wonder if the fruit flies will make it into the predator chamber.
I wonder how long the ecocolumn will sustain itself. Will the fruit flies continue to reproduce? Should we add another predator to the system? More observation is needed.
Catherine

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - Catherine

Condensation

Student Blog Site

www.think.com

This is a student friendly blog that my friend used last year with her students. It will even block any bad language or remarks, and you can control it by only allowing your students to use it.

July 17, 2007-Bridgett

I was a little concerned today when I looked at the Eco-column. It seems that our leech may have gone to a better place because he did not look like he was moving much. The fish also seemed to be moving at a slower pace and continued to swim towards the surface. I am wondering if they are trying to get more oxygen, and Ruth suggested that we may need to make more holes in the aquatic chamber. After much consideration, we decided that this may not make a lot of difference. The apples in the decomposition chamber continued to break down and rot. There used to be a fly in this chamber, but he was nowhere to be found. I wonder if he had time to lay eggs in the apple before he was most likely caught by Albert E. in one of his beautiful webs. Speaking of Albert E., he was nowhere to be found, but his webs were still present, and it seemed that there were creatures inside the webs. I am not sure where these creatures may have come from, but I do think the fly met his end when he flew up into the predator chamber. "Rain" water continued to drip from the precipitation chamber. I do not know if our fish will still be alive by tomorrow. I am hoping that the rain will help bring new nutrients to the aquatic chamber.

July 16-Bridgett

Here is a picture of the ecocolumn on Monday, July 16th. It has not changed much. Albert E. has started creating webs where he is catching flies. We are not sure where these insects are coming from, but there was a fly in the decomposition chamber on last Wednesday. There is an increase in condensation, and we did add a little "rain" to the ecocolumn.

I am hoping that there will be more change before the end of the class.

APES - EcoColumn Purpose
Purpose: The purpose of the ecocolumn lab is to provide an opportunity to explore several types of ecosystems, the components of these systems, the conditions required for sustainability for each, and the interconnections between the various ecosystem column chambers.

Materials:
Provided 5 Two-liter plastic soda bottles - clear, labels removed, rinsed 3 Bottle caps with holes drilled Rock for aquatic chamber - to hold plant and for stability 1 Plastic straw Clear mailing tape - to secure column Soil and sand Utility or exacto knives
You provide Leaves, grass clippings, pieces of fruit 46 seeds - for terrestrial chamber Aquatic plant (anacharis, hornwort, green hedge, ludwigia, etc.) Fuana - Aquatic chamber (snails, fish, crayfish, frog, etc.) Water - for Aquatic Chamber: Purified water Fuana - Terrestrial chamber (worms, rolly-pollys, ladybugs, etc.)

Procedures outlined in schematic below:
Monitoring: Over the Next 10 -12 weeks, possibly longer, you will monitor the factors found on the data sheet, plus several others. These levels will be recorded and analyzed throughout the experiment.
Water Analysis
Date
Odor
Turbidity
Color
Nitrate -N
Phosphate
D.O.
Hardness
Carbon Dioxide
Chloride
Alkalinity
Ammonia -N
Silica
Sulfide
pH
Other
Biome Observations
Date
Aquatic Habitat
Decomposition Habitat
Terrestrial Habitat

Scientific method you should follow during your lab.

Step one: Identify what you are trying to discover through the creation of your ecocolumn. Just what is that you are trying to learn or find out.

Step two: Identify your sources of background information on ecosystems such as specific textbook chapters and lecture notes.

Step three: Write an hypothesis for each of the three habitats: aquatic, decomposition, and terrestrial.

Step four: Write an explanation and diagram of your experimental set-up. Be sure to identify all of the abiotic and biotic factors in each of your three habitats. Make sure to include all your weekly observations as raw data. All such observations must be properly dated. Also, make sure to include the date when you set up your ecocolumn, and the dates and descriptions when changes were made. Identify the number of days your ecocolumn has been in operation. Identify the pH, temperature, and dissolved oxygen content of your aquatic habitat and the point during the experiment when these measurements were taken. Make comparisons with data from other ecocolumns in the classroom. Look for such things as plant growth, decomposition rate, and water turbidity.

Step five Conclusion and analysis: This is the most important part of the report.

1. Identify food chains and food webs in each of the habitats.

2. Identify any biogeochemical cycles that are present.

3. Determine the affects of each habitat on the others.

4. Determine why there are differences in the ecocolumns in the classroom.

5. Identify the roles of various biotic factors such as decomposers, producers, consumers, etc.

6. Identify changes that occurred in ecocolumn, such as the water going from murky to clear in the aquatic habitat. explain why you think such changes occurred and their implications as far as the health of the ecosystem is concerned.

7. Compare your artificial ecosystem to real ones. How are they different?

8. Was the ecosystem a open or closed system or something in-between - how does this affect your column?

9. What kinds of niches were available to the various organisms and was there any competition? 10. Was the law of tolerance in action? If so, what where the limiting factors in the habitat?

11. Was there any form of succession in yours or anyone else's ecocolumn?

12. Did the plant life seemed to have a difficult time in the terrestrial habitat? if so, why?

13. Was there a change in color in any of the habitats? Was there any fuzzies present? What caused these changes?

14. Comment on the stability and sustainabilty of various ecocolumns in the classroom. Why do some of the columns appear to be more stable than others?

15. Explore any analogies that can be made between your mini worlds (ecocolumns) and the real world. Do the ecocolumns teach us anything about real world ecosystems.

Step six: The sixth step of the scientific method is to disseminate what you have learned.