Final Week

 This week was exiting, our fruit flies took over the decompost chamber. I was just amazed of how many fruit flies we had. Our isotope and worms were still living and our plant just seemed to kept growing. This project was very educational. At first I was just a little disappointed and the process, because I couldn't see anything going on, but as the week went by and I saw all the changes it got more interesting. I wished we would've had one more week.

Week 10 Final week

The water plant seems to be growing and purifying our water. The algae growth on the water is not producing anymore. The fruit flies has taken over our compost chamber. The Isopod is still living. The plant chamber is thriving well. Our ecosystem seems to be stabilized and working properly. I was able to bring home the ecosystem and take it apart. The earthworms and Isopod were still living. The compost chamber had almost broken down completely to soil. My sons really enjoyed helping me take it apart and see everything inside.

Week 9

The water plant was still living and seemed to be stabilizing our water. The water still had some algae growth but was not as bad as it had been previously. The compost chamber had produced more fruit flies and mold. The earthworms seem to be surviving even though it is hard to tell. The Isopod was still living. The plant chamber was doing well with new growth on it.

Week Ten Final Post

This week our fruit flies population explosed they swarmed in our decomp area most of the time but afew moved to the plant area too. Our plant has continued to grow at the faster rate due to the increase in the soil size. Final thoughts on this project are that it was helpfull to understand an ecosystems.

Week 9

There is a lot going on in our ecosystem this week. First thing I noticed was the amount of fruit flies, we even had fruit flies in the top chamber. This is due to amount of bananas we added last week and since we have a straw between the top chamber and the decomposition chamber, the fruit flies are able to go back and forth. Our plant has grown significately, I guess the soil we added last week its helping it grow, actually it doesn't have any more room to grow, We'll have to watch it in the next few weeks, to make sure it takes a different turn...Our plant in the aquatic chamber is green and growing, we have some algae and the water is a little dark, but it seems to be ok, since our plant is alive and greener.

Week Nine

Our plant has grown more in this week than any other week. I believe this is due to the soil we added to the plants level increasing the amount of materials available to the plant. Our aquatic area is once again dark but the plant in the water is alive and turned greener this week. In the decomp area we have a huge amount of fruit flies due to the large amount of bananas we added lasted week. Also fruit flies are now in our plant level because we unkinked the straw.

Week 8

Our Ecosystem is stable. This week we added more soil to the terrestial chamber, because our plant most likely lost all the its minerals. We also added water to the top and poured out water from the aquatic chamber. this should help our plant stay green and continue to grow. Our worms and the Isopod were still alive!!! We added more banana to the decompost, even though we still have fruit flies.

Week Eight

This week we remove a part of our eco system that made it unstable. We beliueve the soil in our plant chamber lost it's minials so we add more soil for our plant and poured water from aquitic area on plant area. This should help our plant continue to grow.

Week 8

We added soil and water to the plant. The moisture was built up in the plant chamber. The Isopod and worms were still living. We had alot of fruit flies added banana for food. The water seemed stabalized and plant in water was thriving. The ecosystem seems to be functioning properly.

Week 7

Compost chamber had a Isopod living in it. We also had a black mold growing in the compost chamber. Worms seemed to be living and thriving. We added mulch to compost chamber because compost had broke down completely. Plant needed water even though we had moisture build up in plant chamber.

week 7

This week we decided to open the decomposition chamber to see if we had anything living. The soil and mulch had compacted and we needed to add some more. We found some exiting things going on. We found the we had a isopod living and black mold. Molds derive energy not through photosynthesis but from the organic matter. Organic material enables the recycling of nutrients throughout our ecosystems. Is very interesting how mold occur, I'm guessing ours came from the juice and the lemon and banana we added at the beginning of the project. In the aquatic chamber the plant was still living and the water was a little brown from the decomp since we added water to the plant last week. Let's see what happens next week....

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Week 6

This week we changed the water in our ecosystem, because of the mold and the odor.We also added a plant and fresh water to the bottom chamber. I was a little worry that our ecosystem was not changing but at the same time I started thinking of all the changes in the past few weeks. We had life in our decomp chamber from the little green bud, the fruit flies, the worms, the mold in the water chamber, the condensation in our top chamber. All these are changes that our ecosystem has gone through. I guess I was expecting more. But I'm happy still alive,we'll see next week!

Week 5

This week the ecosystem seemed to be doing ok, the water had a smell, plant was still alive. Didn't do anything to it because it was fall break.

Week Seven

This week we openned our decomp chamber and follow a whole eco system in the dirt. There was mold as primary producors and worms and other insects to feed on the mold. the decomp we put into the eco system in the begining is now almost all gone. Also when we added water it came out of the decomp chamber a dark brown color.

Week 6

The plant was thriving and appeared to have new growth on it. It appeared to have some type of flowers budding on it. The compost was breaking down into alomost soil. The water chamber had become moldy and had a pungent smell. We changed out the water and started fresh. We also added a plant to the water. We had plenty of condensation coming up to the top to water the plant. We could not find the worms to see if they were alive.

Week 5

The new plant was thriving. The water became stagnant with a foul odor. The worms appeared to still be alive. Did not do anything to change the ecosytem this week.

Week Four

Checked the ecosystem today and the aquatic area was orange and had a foul smell. We changed the water out because the decomposition area was seeping into it. This is evidence that material is circulating through the ecosystem. We put a straw into the top and middle of the ecosystem to allow the flys to travel back and forth, but it was taped shut when we checked it again this week. We would like to add more water lilies to the bottom or even other aquatic plants.

Week Six

This week we had to change out our water again. However, I believe this time it was due to evaporation and setament that may have filtered down into the aquitic area. There was condensation in our terrestrial area which I believe came from our aquitic area and shows our bio dome's water is cycling though the different levels.

Week 4

This week in our ecosystem we had mold growing in our water. We also had a fruit fly in our decomposition chamber. We changed out the water and added worms to our dirt and decomposition chamber. We also added a weed to the dirt chamber because the grass had died.

Week 4

This week our ecosystem had exiting events. We had fruit flies!!!! The banana, lemon and the fruit juices we added help us to get them. Our water had horrible smell and we had to change it. Our little bud in the decompost chamber was brown. But our plant in the top chamber was doing great, probably due to the drain system we added last week. We also added a worm this week, I hope he stays alive. It's very interesting how things changed from week to week in our ecosystem. I hope we are able to keep it alive and keep finding some more exiting things!!
Bessy Michel

Week 3

This week we added a banana and a lemon hoping to get some fruit flies. We also added a plant to the top since our weed was dying due to lack of oxygen and we also added a straw to help the water drain better on the top chamber. We added some rocks and punched some holes to the top chamber. We had little bud growing in the decompost chamber, Yeah! On the aquatic chamber we found some mold, probably some the fruit juice we added last week.
Bessy Michel

Week Four

This week we had to major developments one was the fruit fly who have arrived in our decomp chamber and the other was the mold in our aquatic area. I believe that the fruit flies were drawn to our decomp area because of the rich enviroment of food in it. A side effect of the fruit smoothie we add was mold started growing in the aquatic area due to the smell of this we were forced to change the water out. Also our grass survived the week. I believe this is in part due to the drainage system we added.

Week 3

Mold had formed on the water from the fruit juice. The lillies had died. The grass was dying because we forgot to put air hole in the top of the ecosystem. A plant started to grow in the decompostion chamber. We added rock to the bottom of the water. We added a weed to the soil chamber and put air holes in it. We also added a piece of banana and lemon to the decomposition chamber.

Week Three

This week we add a drainage straw to the plant level of our biodome. This wiil help to remove some of the water from the soil. We hope this will make the soil better suited for our plants. In the decomposition level there was a small plant starting to grow out of the dirt. However, we added fuit and it got crushed. Our aquatic level had mood on the top of it problumly because of the fuit juices we added. Also our lilly pad died as a result of the fruit juices. We added rock to the aquatic level.

Week 2

Tuesday we rechecked the ecosystem and we had few things going on. First our millipede and ants died, due to lack of food. and oxygen. The soil in the top chamber had compacted and the grass wasn't looking good. The water lily did great and the water was still clear. We added soil to the top and decompose chamber, since it had compressed. We also added fruit juice which it was a mixture of pineapple, peach, strawberry, real fruit juice and kiwi juice hoping to get some fruit flies. We also punched more holes to the top chamber.

Week two

This week we add some fruit soothie to our decomp. hopefully this will draw bugs and fungi. I think we many need to add some kind of drain system to the top level of our dome or plant that live in mash land. hopefull we will be able to draw fruit fly in with the soothie mix.

Week Two

We rechecked our ecosystem today. The worm that we had in the mulch pile died due to an inadequate supply of food. The plant at the top of our system is looking sad so I am going to bring more to class next week. The lilies in the water chamber at the bottom are doing really good and are very low maintenance. We added more dirt to the top and the compost chambers, and rewatered the plant.

Week One

Tonight we began putting our ecosystem together. Starting with the marsh water in the bottom, and then adding our leaves and debrie to the middle in the compost chamber. Finally, in the top, we planted what looked like grass roots.

Week 2

Our ants and millipede died in our ecosystem. The grass was still living but needed more soil added to it. The soil had compacted and exposed some of the roots. The water lillies were still living and seemed to be fine. We added some fruit juice in hope of aquiring some fruit flies and to see if it would help break down the compost. We also added some water to the grass.

Week 1

We created our ecosystem as instructed. We used water from the Big Branch Marsh with two small water lillies. We used mulch and debris to create a compost from the same area. We also used the dirt we got from underneath the leaves and compost. The dirt had ants and one millipede in it. We planted some grass that was aquired on campus.

Week One

This week we build our biodome. One problum we had was that our plant layer on top was not draining very fast. However, I don't believe this to be a problum becausethe soild will not dry out before we can water it again the next week. I don't know how good it will be to add fish to the dome because I think the bottom container may not be big enough or have the amount of plants needed to handle the waste they will produce and can cause them to have a popluted enviroment. I think this project could be interesting but I wish we had more freedom on the design. I also think that we may need to add something under our soil layer to help it drain.

Week 1

Tonight we started with our ecosystem. We have a little of everything. We have water from a pond, mulch, dirt, which it had worms and ants. We also have small weed on the top. So far so good. We will be adding more next week.