Week 1

Today we created our two-tier terrarium, our "ecosystem in a bottle."  We assembled it following the directions from the lab.  The top tier has soil in it that we planted 6 seeds, 3 summer sunshine flower seeds and 3 green beans.  The bottom tier has gravel, water, a green plant (elodea) and tiny animals (3 daphnia and 3 snails). There are cotton strings (3 each 30 cm long) running from the top tier of soil into the water on the bottom tier.  The water will be pulled up into the cotton string and will provide some moisture for the seeds in the soil in the top tier.  We will store our terrarium on the window sill, so that it is exposed to sunlight which will provide some heat as well. 
We can see the daphnia swimming around throughout the water in the bottom tier and we can also see the snails, that are moving just a little bit.  It moves slightly through the gravel. Our plant is very green, with just a few brown spots, and seems healthy.  The water is very clear, making it easy for us to see what is going on in our ecosystem. In the top tier, the seeds we planted last week have not sprouted yet. We will attach a picture from our first day. 

We predict that the seeds will sprout in the top tier and that the daphnia and snails will swim around in the bottom tier. The green plant will probably stay green for a while.

Questions for thought:

Do you think the plants and animals in our fully enclosed, 2-tier terrarium will survive?

Why or why not?

This picture shows the full two-tier terrarium. As you can see, the bottom half has the water ecosystem and the top half is the land ecosystem.  

We just put together our terrarium on this day so the only growth that is found is from the organisms and plants that we got as our starting resources.  We worked together to put the terrarium together and will watch the development of the plant growth and animal growth and reproduction.