Our Final Results

Here are pictures of each zone. We left the eco-column as was over the three week holiday and came back with some unsuspecting results. First of all our terra-zone has almost completely died and is now much like the decomposition zone. We thought we had created a cycle of water to keep the plants alive. Firstly we cut holes in the top to let oxygen etc in but the evaporating water may have used this to escape. And secondly the water may have simply filtered down into the decomposition-zone. 

The decomposition zone was the most surprising, almost all off the materials we started with were gone but a small plant or weed had begun to grow inside it. We believe that this was because there may have been a seed inside the soil when we inserted it. The water has probably filtered down from the terra-zone and there is sunlight shining through the plastic creating new life.

The aqua zone was most impressive, showing a flourish of live ranging from our water weed to the snails and small unknown water creatures.

Over all our eco-column is two thirds successful which is definitely a plus, we had a fun and positive project to deal with and are now done.

Thanks from the team. :))))))

Why Our Eco-Column is an Eco-System

In our Eco-Column we have living organisms interacting with each other in a physical environment. 

What is an Eco-system

Since ecosystems can be as small as a single tree or as large as entire forest, there are lots and lots of different ecosystems in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When you want to talk about how a certain natural area functions together, you can call it
a biome. A biome is a very specialized ecosystem that only exists in a certain
area or climate. They are identified by factors like temperature, rainfall, soil type and
altitude.

Change of biotic components in our eco-column

Our fern has grown 4mm since we planted it and our mint has grown 2mm since we planted it. Most of our animals are still alive but unfortunately one earthworm has died and a couple of wood lice have also died. Our two earthworms are situated deep around the side of our Eco-column, we have 6 wood lice left and lots of termites, we can't count them because there are too many.

Data collection of our abiotic components in our Eco-column

On the 9/03/2013 we measured the temperature and got a reading of 23 degrees C and the temperature of the room was 18 degrees C. We also measured the pH of the water for the first time, when we put the drops in our water it turned a dark green colour which indicates that the pH of the water was 7.

On the 10/03/2013 we measured the temperature of our aqua zone as 22 degrees C and we took the pH of the water and it turned the same dark green which tells us that the pH was 7 again.

On the 12/03/2013 we took our final readings, the temperature of the aqua zone was 20 degrees C and the water turned a very dark green colour showing that the pH of the water was 9.

Our abiotic factors observed under a microscope

Today we retrieved some water from our Eco-column and put it under a microscope. We noticed that there was lots of plant fragments in our water, we also noticed that there were small black creatures in our water, unfortunately we could not identify them.

On he 12/03/2013 we were going to observe a sample of soil from our terra zone under a dissecting microscope, unfortunately we did not have the microscope so we did it without it. We observed it and noted that there were many bugs, we could not identify them, and the roots from the fern and mint had grown a lot.

  

A photo of our Eco-column

 Hi everyone here is a photo of our completed Eco-column so all of you can see it. We haven't put our stand on just for the purpose of this photo thanks :)