Week 3: 10/13/15

Our ecosystem this week has had a lot changes this week including some significant growth and probably a death.  5 out of our 6 seeds that were planted have sprouted and there are a lot of roots growing in throughout the dirt and top part of the ecosystem. One of the beans has attached itself to the wall of the upper bottle. The tallest plant is about 20 cm.  In the bottom tier, the water level is 10.4 cm and the water is clear with a slight brown tint.  Our elodea plant is still pretty green and there is one sprout off of it that is above the water but the rest of it is still submerged.  There are less particles floating around than there were last week.  We can see that one of the snails is underneath a rock. We can see one daphnia that we think has died.  There is still some condensation and it is on the side that was away from the window.  Pictures to follow!

We predict that the plants in the soil will continue to grow well. We predict that the other daphnia will also die. We predict that the water plant will continue to grow well.

Questions for thought:

Why do you think the water has a slightly brown tint? Do you think it will become even darker colored or do you think it will stay mostly clear? Why?

The plants that have sprouted in the top portion of the terrarium and the bean that has attached itself to the wall.  

This is the portion of the elodea that is no longer submerged under water. 

The water level and mostly clear water is visible in this picture. 

Here are the roots of the various plants that have been growing in our terrarium.

In these pictures, you can see how much our plants sprouted from week 2 to 3.  The roots very visibly started to sprout through the soil which you can see in picture second from the bottom.  In pictures 2 and 3 you can clearly see how green our elodea plant is!