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