Changes in our eco – column over 3 weeks:

	Prediction:	Actual outcome and comments:
Plants (Terra zone)	The plants will grow as they are equipped with enough resources (sunlight, water and CO2), and will photosynthesize further providing the rest of the eco – column with oxygen. Maybe not as much as in the summer, because they are receiving less sunlight. At the moment, the height of the highest plant is 7,5 cm.	The plants did grow as they were equipped with all the necessary resources. It grew by 5 cm (from 7,5 to approx 12,5. I think this result is succesful, because i thought (as it was the change of the season) the weather would worsen (eg. less sunlight), but the rate at which the plants grew were exactly the same as in summer (0ver 3 weeks)
Water (Aqua zone)	The water level will drop a bit as it evaporates to produce water for the eco – column (photosynthesis of plants)	The water level did indeed drop by 0.7 cm to provied the rest of the eco-column with evaporated water. So my prediction was accurate.
Animals/organisms (Decomp and aqua zone)	Our snail will continue feeding off the decomposing granadilla and tomato. We have water flee in our aqua zone, and they will continue living off the water.	Our snail continued to feed off the decomposing granidilla and tomato and is still alive. Our water flees reproduced and there all now more water flees than before.
Soil (Decomp and terra zone)	The soil will become drier because of less water evaporating (less sunlight) therefore slowing down the plant growth.	This was found to be false. The soil is still rich in nutrients and can still provide what is needed for the plants to grow.
Temperature of room	As it is becoming winter the air temperature will lower because it is getting colder.	The air temperature is lowering due to the the change in seasons, but not as much as I thought.
Sunlight	The eco – column will receive less sunlight as it will be more overcast in the winter than it was in the summer, therefore slowing down the process of photosynthesis.	We cannot measure the amount of sunlight received but we know that the process of photosynthesis was not slowed down because the plants grew by 5 cm, which is reasonable (if not good).

Before pics of our Terra zone:

                                                          Before pics of our Decomp zone:

Before pics of our aqua zone:

After pics of our terra zone:

                                                     



                                                       After pics of our decomp zone:

                                                       



                                                            After pics of our aqua zone

in the photo above you can see the change in the water level

Eco-column as an eco-system

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.

Our eco-column is an eco-system to the extent in which it has most, if not all the characteristics of an eco-system.

                                                                                                          Fungal spores in the decomp zone

Our eco-column has many growing plants including aqua plants, thus keeping the water in our aqua zone from going stagnant. The plants in our terra zone provide enough oxygen for the growing of our plants and for our organisms.

The plants in our terra zone

                                                                                                        

The soil in our decomp zone

The plants in our aqua zone

Yes, it has sustained itself without our interference.Our animals (snails) have sustained itself by chewing on our tomato plant. Our succulents  and weeds (that we found in a garden) in our terra zone has been growing extremely quickly. Our eco-column has sustained life and we have kept the water from going stagnant by putting aqua plants in the aqua zone. Our eco-column has been successful and will continue to be.

Reflections On The Term's Work

Was the eco-column a success or not as an ecosystem

yes I believe that our eco column was a success as it is still self sustaining and we have not taken anything out or added anything to keep it self sustaining. in a self sustain point of view it was a huge success. But as a ecosystem  not as much of a success because of the ants that got stuck to the side of the coke bottles, from the condensation that took place which left water on the side trapping most off the ants. We still found 2 tiny snails like creatures in the eco column, who took their place which were seen eating the plants. As well as many kinds of biotic components under the microscope which kept the food chain going. it may have been by luck that the food chains stayed in place and through our design  that kept all the zones interacting with each other.Our organisms interact with each other and with their non living environment for example the temperature of the room and the speed of decomposition and the amount of oxygen and the growth of fungal spores. Which they have always done. Which made a successful ecosystem

To what extent do we have a better understanding of ecology

What I have learnt and how much I understand and ecology   Nicholas Viljoen 

I have learnt that an eco-system is self-sustaining and maintaining. An eco-system consists of different types of organisms which interact with each other. There are three different zones in our eco-column, the Terra, Aqua and Decomposition zone. The different zones give us an indication of how the organisms work in each of the different terrains. I have also learnt that an eco-system is made up of two components which influences an organism and its habitat, abiotic (non-living) and biotic (living) factors.  I know now that there are two different energy transference methods between organisms, a food chain, which is the flow of energy between organisms, and a food web, which is all the interconnected food chains in one part of an eco-system. Interacting with our eco column has given me more knowledge about ecology and simplified the actual work that we did this term.

What I have learnt and how much I understand and ecology   Josh Smith 

I have learnt a lot more about ecology in terms of the eco-system through this eco-column. I have learnt all the necessary resources needed to sustain an efficient, self-sustaining eco-system. The three zones of our eco-column is a smaller version of the real eco-system. There are two main components that impact the eco-system, the biotic and the abiotic components. There are many different ways to show the energy transference, there are food chains and there are food webs, all these are interconnected. I have a better understanding of ecology now that i have participated in this project.

What I have learnt and how much I understand and ecology    Warwick Reid

I have learnt that there really are living organisms everywhere which was proved by our group finding organisms in all of our zones. through our groups great idea of putting some water  plants from my fish tank in showed me what a great filter they are. also how important plants are to the survival off all biotic factors. I think that the main things I have learnt through our notes and through our eco-column is the transferring of energy in food chains or webs, the biotic components (living components) and abiotic components (non living components) which I thought were the most important aspects of this section. I understand far more and have more depth than when we started. Having these interactive working sessions just made the work we did stick giving me even more knowledge about this section of work.

 Did our group work well together or not?

Nicholas Viljoen
I think our group worked well together. We managed to put our own personal skills to use to produce successful a self – sustaining eco-column. We had some issues deciding what is best for our eco-column in the process of building it, but managed to sort out those problems and we all agreed. In conclusion, I thought we worked well together as a group and it was a successful project.

Josh Smith
I think our group worked well together, we distributed the work load very well and evenly, on top of that we get a long very well.

Warwick Reid

we have always got along well together and were great friends. we each have our strengths and have distributed the work fairly and to the strengths that we have. we have all always produced the work that we set each other and the fact that we are all compelled to do well in class we did all our work ton our best benefiting the group. I believe that we have worked well and hard and that we have the blog and the eco-column to prove it


who did what

Changes in the abiotic components

2013/02/21

• We recorded the temperature in the class at 8:50am 2013/02/21. The teperature is 21.5 degrees celcius. 
• The water in the water zone has created a lot of water vapour in all 3 zones (aqua, terra and decomp). 
• The water level in our aqua zone is 7,4cm at the moment.

2013/02/28

• The air temperature is 22 degrees Celsius in the room our Eco-column is in recorded at 08:51
• There is still a lot of water vapour on the sides of our bottles.
• The water level has stayed exactly the same (7,4cm)

2013/03/04:

• The water level has dropped about 1mm, the water has evaporated by means of sunlight and spread to the rest of the eco-column
• The temparuture in the class room is 25 degrees celcius, this was measured at 11:14am
• The temparuture of the water is 26 degrees celcius. This was also measured at 11:14am

Other abiotic factors that may be affecting our eco column:

Our eco - column is on the side of the classroom where it will receive a lot of sunlight which will speed up the process of photosynthesis and the growth of plants. The windows and doors are usually open which allows a cold breeze to blow over the eco - column which will cool down the temperature of the water and air inside the eco - column on a warm day.

Who did what?

Nicholas 

Measured the temperature of the room

Measured the water temperature
Measured the pH of the water

Josh:

Measured the water level
Looked at the water under the microscope

Warwick

General observations
Looked at the soil under the microscopes

This is how we measure the temperature of the room:

This is us measurin the temperature of the water:

Changes in the biotic components

Our eco-column has sustained itself for 1 week now! Here are some observations of the biotic components:

2013/02/21

• We added a spider in the terra zone last week and that spider has now died. We also added about 30 ants, and at the moment it looks like they are all still alive.
• We found a small worm-like creature in our aqua zone. We will be adding a short video of the worm moving, that was taken under a light microscope.
• The grandilla outer shell is slowly decomposing in our decomp zone.
• The snail has started eating the tomato plants

2013/02/28

• A plant has begun to grow from our decomposing piece of tomato (you can find more info on this here: http://leavingbio.net/plant%20responses.htm)
• The growth of the plants in the Terra zone was great, the weed has grown approximately 2,5cm in height. There is nine leaves on the succulent plant.
• Most of the ants has died as we can only see a few.
• The water plants in the aqua zone has grown roots die to a lack of oxygen.
• The tomato has almost completely decomposed.

2013/03/04

• The ants were stuck tot the side of the terra zone because of the water vapour in the eco-column
• The snail oin the terra zone has started to eat the tomato plant

Who did what?

Nicholas

Managed and counted the leaves and plants and observed the colour of the plants

Posted all info onto blog

Josh

General observations about the eco-column 

Measured the height of the plants

Observations under microscopes

Warwick

Managed and counted the animals in the eco-column

Reported extra information for me to post on the blog

Observations under microscopes


This is how our terra zone is looking at the moment:

This is our plants in the terra zone:

Biotic components under a light and disecting microscope

On the 2013/02/21 our observations under the light microscope where dismal. We never found dead or living organisms from the water in our Aqua zone. Warwick and I were fascinated when we looked through the disecting microscope at the soil from the decomp zone, where we found fungal spores germinating and growing on the soil.

This was a shot of the fungal spores taken by the our biology teacher:

This is a cell shot of our water from our aqua zone:

                                                                  A light microscope:

A disecting microscope

Who did what?

Josh - looked under the light micrscope
Took pitures of observations see under microscopes

Warwick - looked under the disecting microscope
Took pitures of observations see under microscopes

Nic - edited blog and posts
uploaded pictures to blog


EXTRA INFORMATION:

Fungal spores - www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/ppfungsp.htmlShare

Definition - Unicellular or multicellular, reproductive or distributional cells developing into a number of different phases of the complex life cycles of the fungi. Fungal spores can be readily classified by the Saccardian system, which relies on the number, shape, and placement of spore cells to classify the fungi imperfecti. Most fungal spores in pollen preparations probably are phaeospores (dark spores) of the fungi imperfecti, rather than ascospores, basidiospores, or spores of the lower fungi. However, repeating (asexual) spores of the basidiomycetes are very common in some sites.

This is a photo from the internet that looks similar to the fungal spores that were in our decomp zone

The worm-like animal that we found in our aqua zone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicellular_organism

The worm like creature is a multicellular organism. Multicellular organisms are organisms that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to single - elled organisms. To form a multicellular organism, these cells need to identify and attach to the other cells.

Only a dozen or so unicellular species have cells that can be seen individually with the naked eye. The rest of the nearly two million visible species are multicellular. In particular all species of animals, land plants. and filamentous fungi are multicellular, as are many algae. Some organisms are partially uni- and multicellular, like Dictyostelium.

The worm like animal is similar to the one we found in our eco - column, and observed under the light microscope.

Problems - Warwick Reid

My technical problems have been sorted out and I am now able to get onto the blog!