July 17, 2007 Biocolumn

Our ecocolumn is still striving the aquatic system is still clear. The tadpole is fat and happy.? He looked me straight in the eye this morning probably wondering why we put him in this wonderful contraction. The minnow is swimming low to the bottom probably looking for a bit to eat. The duck weed is still a vibrant green floating mystically on the top of the water. The decomposition chamber has a little condensation around the chamber and the piece and the banana is growing mold rapidly. There is micro organisms growing on one of the branches in the terrian chamber.

STUDENT BOG SITE

The following blog site(listed below) is user friendly for students. One of the teachers in our MSP class recommended it. Students could blog their observations and comments about the ecocolumns and respond to each others' comments. I think that this would be an excellent LITERACY COMPONENT to the science classroom.

http://www.haranbanjo.com:16080/kidzblog/
This site has a user guide. You can manage up to ten blogs without registering.

Ecocolumn July 16, 2007

Our biocolumn is still vibrant. There is mold growing in the decomposition chamber on the banana peel. The water in the aquatic chamber is clear now. The condensation has lessened. There is a new tadpole in the aquatic chamber. The plant live is still thriving and has produces so new root systems. Some of the other plant life has started to die.

ECOCOLUMN UPDATE

Amazingly the life in our aquatic chamber appears healthy and happily swimming through the lush vegetation. In fact, the wonder of life has occurred and we have a new tadpole. The water has cleared as expected and all the plants show new growth. Small particles of dirt have seeped through the holes in the bottle cap and have entered the aquatic chamber.
Happily condensation continues to form within the the chambers. This transpiration is essential for our column to continue. A piece of banana peel was placed into the decomposing chamber. Mold spores are beginning to form on the peel.
Unfortunately we were unable to locate the bug that was placed in the terrestrial chamber three days ago. Our plants have started to wilt. We added some water into this chamber to help prevent them from dying.

Day 5 July 16

We didn't get a chance to check our ecosystem on Thursday or Friday, which means that it has been on its own for four days. Today, we should be able to notice if anything is negatively affecting it. I was concerned about the amount of algae present in the water when we started it.
It is now 9:00 in the morning. We have observed that the condensation in the container is not blocking our view of the ecosystem anymore. There is condensation in each layer, but not as much. The water has cleared up in the aquatic ecosystem. The fish are very active and there is not as much algae present. The plant material in the ecosystem is helping clean the water. The decomposition layer now has mold growing on the banana peel. There is a fair amount of condensation in this layer. I think the condensation is occurring during the decomposition process, but I am not sure. A few of the plants are dying in the terrestrial layer. I don't think we buried the roots into the soil deep enough.