Reflection on the term's work

We determine that our ecocolumn has most definately been successful as an ecosystem.
Our Eco-column is an Ecosystem in that is has many times been proven to be a self sustaining environment containing both Biotic organisms( worms , radishes and a cactus plant ) that have continued to survive , and Abiotic factors. The Abiotic factors have influenced the Biotic factors .EXAMPLE The lack of water over the 3 week period has caused the radish plants to become rather dehydrated and appear to have changed to a dry green colour, due to the lack of water being transported to the Decomposition zone this has caused a decrease in the population of fruit flies in our Ecoolumn.


We now have a better understanding of ecology because we have been interacting with an artificial ecosystem  giving us a deeper insight into the studies of ecology. We were able to have a first person view of life and all it's characteristics through the construction of our ecocolumns with we made by hand. We hand picked all our Biotic and Abiotic factors and whitnessed their effect on the ecosystem. By Having built our own ecosystem we now know what needs to be included and what can be considered vital for a successful ecosystem to be self sustaining.

What Andrew thinks :I believe that Jordan and I work well together as we are in a group of 2 we can discuss who does what easily .Jordan and I are both very hard workers resulting into mass effort from both of us.Jordan and I do not complain and get the work done in advance and don't leave it to the last minute.

What Jordan thinks :  I think that we worked very well together , we learned about ecology and communicated about this blog well we both agree that doing ecology has become easier after working with this blog and look forward to the coming syllabus in Biology this year.

A picture of our Decomposition zone

A picture of our Aqua zone containing  water and pond weed.

Eco-column as an ecosystem

What is an Ecosystem ?

Answer : An ecosystem is a self sustaining community of living organisms ( Biotic factors ) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment ( Abiotic Factors ), interacting as a system, no Ecosystem can exist without Biotic and Abiotic components.

Our Eco-column is an Ecosystem in that is has many times been proven to be a self sustaining environment containing both Biotic organisms that have continued to survive , and Abiotic factors of the environment .E.G. soil ; water and temperature

Abiotic factor (non living ) of water

Biotic factors (living organisms) such as plants existing in our Terra zone.

Changes in our eco-column over 3 weeks

Post 1 of Blog 3

Before Holidays

Facts : Height of plants - cactus like plants : 7cm
                                      Radish 1 : 12cm
                                      Radish 2 : 8cm
                                      Radish 3 : 7cm
                                      Radish 4 : 11cm
         Animals are alive
           

Predictions :   Height of plants - cactus like plants : 8cm                    
                                      Radish 1 : 14cm
                                      Radish 2 : 10cm
                                      Radish 3 : 10cm
                                      Radish 4 : 12cm
         We predict that the animals will remain alive over the holidays.

After Holidays

Facts:   Height of plants - cactus like plants : 8.2cm
                                      Radish 1 : 13cm
                                      Radish 2 : 10cm

                                      Radish 3 : 11cm
                                      Radish 4 : 12cm
         Animals have survived the holidays

 a picture of our decomposition zone before the holidays






a picture of our aqua zone before the holidays

       a picture of our terra zone containing worms before  the holidays

 A picture of our decomposition zone after the holidays , little change has occured dut to the being very few living organisms ( biotic factors) existing in the area of the colomn.

The aqua section has changed visually in that the water has become a far more lurky green colour and I suspect and increase in PH acidity levels.







The Terra zone of our colomn experienced the most change in that the constant watering of the plants and the existing abiotic factors ( worms) make for increasing growth in the cacti plant aswell as with the radish plants.

Blog post on updates of Biotic and Abiotic factors in our ecocolumn

Changes in Biotic components of ecocolumn 

Day 1:

Height of [cactus] plant : 7cm .              Number of leaves : 0

Number of worms :  15 (all alive)  

Number of radishes : 4

Number of leaves on radish #1 : 12

Number of leaves on radish #2 : 8

Number of leaves on radish #3 : 7

Number of leaves on radish #4: 11

*NOTE* all leaves present were a healthy green colour

*NOTE* Fruit flies are presently surrounding our ecocolumn in search of food from our decomp zone.

Day 2:

Height of [cactus] plant: 7cm               Number of leaves : 0

Number of worms : 15( all alive )

Number of radishes : 4

Number of leaves on radish #1 :13

Number of leaves on radish #2 :11

Number of leaves on radish #3 :8

Number of leaves on radish #4 :13

*NOTE * we were able to identify the species of fruit fly as the : Bactrocera mutabilis

THE INFORMATION  USED TO IDENTIFY THIS SPECIES OF FRUIT FLY CAME FROM :http://www1.dpi.nsw.gov.au/keys/fruitfly/mutabili.htm

Day 3 :
Height of [cactus] plant : 7.5cm                   Number of leaves : 0
Number of worms present : 16
Number of radishes : 5
Number of leaves on radish #1 : 14
Number of leaves on radish #2 : 11
Number of leaves on radish # 3 : 9
Number of leaves on radish #4 : 15
Number of leaves on radish # 5 : 2


Jordan Ross contributed to this blog post by typing and recording certain information onto this blog.
Andrew Gowar contributed to this blog post by passing on information to Andrew Gowar and taking lots of photo's.



Changes in Abiotic components of ecocolumn


Day 1 :

Room temperature : 28 'C
Temperature of aqua zone : 22'C
PH acidity of water : 5


Day 2 :

Room temperature : 18'C
Temperature of aqua zone : 18'C
PH acidity of water : 5

*COMMENT* The air movement of our ecocolumn is not very good as the columns are generally covered and opening flaps left closed. this became more obvious as water started to collect on the roof of our ecocolumn.


Day 3 :

Room temperature : 30'C
Temperature of aqua zone : 21'C
PH acidity : 5



Jordan Ross contributed to this blog post by recording information onto the blog.

Andrew Gowar contributed to this blog post by taking down information first hand and taking photo's.



Observing Abiotic and Biotic components under microscope.

We cannot record the presence of any organism under a microscopic view of a sample of water taken from the aqua zone.

How we stoked our Ecocolumn

How we stoked our Ecocolumn:

First we put our bore-hole water in our first coke bottle at the the bottom of our Ecocolumn which is the Aqua Zone.This includes pond weed and water snails have been added as well .
Photosynthesis takes place in the pond weed (algae).This helps to oxygenate the water.We have a thin tube leading from our Aqua zone into a beaker,this is to prevent over flow of water in the Aqua zone.

We then next created our decomposition zone which we included soil from out side School House,fruit and vegetables and earth worms which will recycle nutrients within the decomposition zone and act as decomposes.

Our third and final zone is the Terra zone. We filled it with soil from outside School House and then planted 2 plants .one was a cactus like plant and the other was a a radish.we planted these because radishes grow quickly and the cactus like plant was planted because it wont die due to a lack of water.  

Why our ecocolumn will be self sustaining

I personally believe that our ecosystem will be self sustaining over a period of 8 weeks because our ecosystem has Abiotic  and Biotic factors and a ecosystem cannot exists without these.

Here is a list of our Abiotic and Biotic factors from our ecosystem:

Abiotic Factors:

Water

Soil

Light 

Biotic factors:

decomposes - Worms and insects such as ants =  These are going to decompose all the fruit and vegetables in our decomposition section. 

Produces - Plants = Plants serve as an energy source for other organisms through photosynthesis  where the plant transfers light energy into chemical energy in the formation of food.

Consumers - Worms .Unfortunately Andrew nor Jordan could find any spiders by Friday therefore could not be placed in our ecosystem as a consumer. After research Jordan and Andrew noticed that the best consumer for ecoculmns like ours are spiders.Andrew has found a spider today ( 24\02\13 ) and shall be placing it in our ecocolumn first thing tomorrow morning.This will act as a great consumer to our ecosystem. 

Research sites

Research was done from the following websites :

http://www.brighthubeducation.com/middle-school-science-lessons/7877-build-an-eco-column-mini-terrarium/

hptt://sites.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/sstevens/home/junior-year/environmental-science/environmental-disturbance-eco-column-project

https://sites.google.com/site/pariseauenvironmentalscience/eco-column-lab


http://grade9eco-column.blogspot.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/dubesenvironmentalplan/eco-column