Hey guys! This week in APES we talked a lot about biodiversity in ecosystems.  An ecosystem has a high biodiversity if it has many different species present, whereas an ecosystem with a low biodiversity only has a few different species present.  The greater the biodiversity in an ecosystem, the more stable the ecosystem is.  Species diversity may take a dangerous downfall from environmental disturbances, such as pollution.

We demonstrated this in class with an experiment in which we measured biodiversity in leaf litter.  We took the class outside to gather our litter...

Gathering leaf litter for the experiment

...Then we brought it back inside and set up our Berlese funnels.  To set up the funnel, we took our bottle of leaf litter and put a bright light on top of it, drying the moisture out of the soil and driving the organisms to the bottom of the container where the opening is, which leads to a small container full of alcohol to catch and kill the organisms.  After we had caught enough organisms from our funnels, we studied them under the microscope.

A millipede under the microscope

A spider and an ant under the microscope

After we counted how many of each organism we found and recorded our class data, we used Simpson's Index of Diversity to determine the biodiversity of our ecosystem by the pond.  The equation is as follows (n = abundance):  

This experiment was not only fun and interesting, but it taught us a lot about the biodiversity in the ecosystems around our school!  We got to observe many different critters that you would not normally see just taking a stroll around the pond!

RE-PURPOSING PROJECT

Hello! The goal of my re-purposing project was to recycle TWO things that are important to the environment. I combined an otherwise thrown away tissue box, with a few otherwise thrown away plastic bags. Into a convenient, easy to use item to store your plastic bags for later use. Just stuff em' in there and your ready to go!

Cheers,

Aaron 

;)

APES students 2012-2013 semester! This week was chock-full of exciting things in the realm of Earth Science in Ms. Bergeron's Class! I will be mostly talking about what we did at the start of the week. Monday was interesting where we learned more in depth on natural selection with the help of a very interesting lab. Each person in the class was given one of three tools or no tool at all. A Popsicle stick, representing a certain finch, a pair of tongs, representing a different bird, or a metal piece. The person with no tool was a squirrel. Then we went outside to test them out. Ms. Bergeron threw out a few of each type of bean and our goal was to get as much as we could in a certain amount of time with the tools provided. We learned that it is easier to get different food sources depending on the resources you have to obtain the food. Some species were better adapted to getting the food, so that species would thrive and survive while the other species who were less adapted might suffer or even become extinct. It was a great lesson! I am looking forward to more like it!

Finches trying to earn their own in the wilderness.

Scavenging for food!

Another great week in APES.

This week in APES we learned a lot of different things, but I will be touching on what we learned Thursday. Thursday we did a lesson on ecosystem changes & primary/secondary succession. We learned about abiotic/biotic changes in ecosystems.

To help us farther our understanding of abiotic changes we started to play a game. This game was based on secondary succession, which is when "pioneer" species have all ready rooted and grew into bigger things but then a natural disaster cleared the land of them. We started with nothing and our goal was to grow a forest in the newly cleared land. Each player would take turns rolling a die and see if they could roll in sequence 1,2,3,4,5 and finally 6 to win. 

If you rolled a 1, then you could put a grass down. If you rolled a 2, then you could put a herb down. If you rolled a 3, then you could put a small tree down. If you rolled a 4, then you could put down a big tree down and destroy 1 of someone's "grass". If you rolled a 5, then you could put down another big tree down and destroy 1 of someone's "herbs". If you rolled a 6 out of sequence, then you destroy the two trees on the field(only if there is 4+). If a 6 is rolled in sequence with the rest of the numbers then you start a "big forest fire" and WIN the game. The first person to roll all the numbers in sequence is the winner. 

The start of a young forest

The game board and playing pieces.

This game showed us how in nature ecosystems aren't just all climax communities. It also showed us how in nature all forest start from just rocks. From which lichen grow onto and drop nutrients for the next plant and so forth and so forth. But it also showed how disasters can cripple this succession and make it start over. (ex. wildfire) 

This week in APES was full of fun but also full with knowledge. We learned about primary succession , secondary succession, natural selection, and much more! Below will be more links to additional information on this topic.

Sincerely, 

Devin Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ2Xl6ZqzRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8-LZdIyUQg

http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/unit/pdfs/textbook.pdf  (UNIT4:PART9)

Topic List for first Test :)

I.        Earth Systems and Resources

a.      Earth Science Concepts

                                                              i.      Geologic time scales

                                                            ii.      plate tectonics

                                                          iii.      earthquakes

                                                          iv.      volcanism

                                                            v.      Seasons

                                                          vi.      Solar intensity & latitude

b.      The Atmosphere

                                                              i.      Composition

                                                            ii.      Structure

                                                          iii.      Weather & climate

                                                           iv.      Atmospheric circulation & Coriolis Effect

                                                             v.      Atmosphere – ocean interactions; ENSO

c.       Soil & Soil Dynamics

                                                              i.      Rock cycle

                                                            ii.      Formation; Composition; physical & chemical properties

                                                          iii.      Main soil types

                                                          iv.      Erosion and other soil problems

                                                            v.      Soil conservation

II. Living World

a.      Ecosystem Structure

i.        Biological populations & communities

ii.   ecological niches

iii. interactions among species

iv. keystone species

v.  species diversity and edge effect

vi.  major terrestrial & aquatic biomes

b.      Energy Flow

                                                                          i.      Photosynthesis & cellular respiration

                                                                        ii.      Food webs and trophic levels

                                                                      iii.      Ecological pyramids

c.       Ecosystem Diversity

                                                                          i.      Biodiversity

                                                                        ii.      Natural selection

                                                                      iii.      Evolution

                                                                      iv.      Ecosystem services (what do they provide?)

d.      Natural Ecosystem Change

                                                                          i.      Climate shifts

                                                                        ii.      Species movement

                                                                      iii.      Ecological succession, primary & secondary

e.      Natural Biogeochemical cycles 

                                                                          i.      Carbon

                                                                        ii.      Nitrogen

                                                                      iii.      Phosphorus

                                                                       iv.      Sulfur

                                                                         v.      Water

                                                                       vi.      conservation of matter

Weekly Re-Purposing Project

I did my project on upcycling a milk jug. By upcycling a milk jug you reduce landfill clutter, reduce fossil fuel destruction by giving a new purpose to a non reusable substance, and reduces air, water, and ground pollution because the material stored in plastics may have toxic materials in them.

I made a sandwich/storage container out of a old milk jug I had laying in recycling.

I made it by:

1. Marking the milk jug(with a NON-permanent marker) around the edges
2. Cut on the lines that you marked.
3. Wipe off the marker lines that are left.
4. Then put small piece of Velcro on the longest piece so it will close correctly. 
5. Congratulations you made a container like mine!

-The left over piece can be used as a funnel.

Sources:
http://spoonful.com/crafts/reusable-lunch-containers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MalGo5Ef-54

Welcome classmates to the APES blog!

This week was filled with many fun, exciting, and interesting activities that has focused on ecosystems in general. We started the week talking about food chains and food webs. We went outside and tried to draw our food webs on the sidewalk but the wind interrupted our activity and messed it up. Nonetheless, we all grasped the concept and realized the difference between a food web and food chain. We talked later in the week about trophic levels and the energy transfer between animals in an ecosystem, and the interaction between animals as mentioned in Will's post. However, this post is going to focus on trophic levels and energy transfer.

On Wednesday, September 12, 2012 we began our class discussion and activities about the energy pipeline and trophic levels in an ecosystem. We examined the energy transfer from one animal to another as we conducted our activity called "Energy Pipeline". To start off this activity, we had to set up our supplies. We each were given five little cups and a trophic level. Some people were producers (plants), primary consumers (herbivores), or secondary consumers (carnivores). Anyway, after getting out trophic level, we cut out the little squares on our worksheet that described what our trophic level did with their energy. After getting every body's cups ready and explained what was to happen our activity began. All of our producers, which was a big group, sat on the floor and began to "capture" energy from the sun. For this activity, the sun was a big bowl of beans with the beans being the energy. As the producers were obtaining their energy and dropping the beans in the designated cups, our primary consumers were waiting for there to be enough beans (10 to be exact) in the growth cup before "eating" the producers. Once the producers were eaten, the primary consumers took the ten beans they got from the producers and dropped the energy into their own five cups. This process went on for a while until finally our primary consumers began to grow with energy. As this happened our two secondary producers could finally begin to eat. The secondary consumers followed the same steps when eating as the primary consumers did. They had to wait until there were ten beans in the primary consumer's cup before eating it. Once the secondary consumers fed, they two spilt up their beans into their five cups.

The producers are splitting up their energy.



The primary consumers were lurking for food.

After conducting this activity, we went back to our seats and filled out our worksheet that went along with the activity. We discussed what trophic level we were, and what our trophic level does with the energy they gain. Our producers, get their energy from the sun and use it for photosynthesis, growth, reproduction, respiration, and unused sunlight. The primary consumers obtain their energy from the plants they eat and use it for growth, reproduction, digestion, movement, and respiration.Lastly our secondary consumers got their energy from the primary consumers and they too use it for growth, movement, digestion, reproduction, and respiration. The last thing on this worksheet that we did, we drew a picture of this basic food chain we observed and calculated how much energy is passed on from one trophic level to the next. We determined that only 10% of the energy each trophic level has gets passed to the next trophic level. From this activity we learned that every living thing has a place in an ecosystem and are essential to food chains and energy pyramids.


This week was a fun interactive week that allowed everyone in the class to conduct and understand the ecosystem. We learned about food webs, energy transfer, and the interaction between animals. This activity was probably my favorite of the week only because we were up moving around instead of sitting and watching but I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the others though. I hope everyone learned all there was to grasp this week and  I hope you have enjoyed my post! For more information on the interaction between animals be sure to check out Will's post! Below are some links to some videos with information about energy transfer, trophic levels, and food chains.

Cameron Wilson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWh-XKhh8xo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjVm0k8GotA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvtRf4TAO4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScizkxMlEOM&feature=fvwrel

Greetings, my fellow APES!

This is Will logging on to give you a brief rundown of what this past week looked like in Ms. Bergeron's class.  We kicked the week off talking about food chains and food webs and how they are read and interpreted, and we even did an activity outside in which we drew our own food webs with sidewalk chalk! We discussed endangered/invasive species and their impact on the ecosystem as well.  We also touched on energy transfer among organisms and the different trophic levels, but I'll let Cameron cover that in her post! The activity that I want to talk about; the one that interested me the most, was the exhibition of competition that we witnessed firsthand between Ms. B's two leopard geckos!

Ms. B has two leopard geckos as her classroom pets, and we all got to gather around the terrarium to watch as she fed them on Friday! She released a bagful (about 20) of crickets into the midst of the two reptiles, and boy did they go to work! All the students were transfixed as Pablo and Sanchez gobbled up the little insects almost effortlessly.  However, this feeding frenzy did not come without a few scuffles between the two girls, but they were quickly resolved by a poke or two from the students.  Both geckos ate at least 7 or 8 crickets before they had their fill, and by then there were hardly any left!

"the students were transfixed"

"gobbled up the insects almost effortlessly"

"a few scuffles between the girls"

We had discussed the ways that species interact within ecosystems and how they eat and transfer energy between themselves, but the geckos really helped bring the lesson full circle.  We understood that different species have different niches, and that they interact in different ways (be it competition, mutualism, paratism, commensalism, etc.), but seeing it for ourselves allowed us to truly grasp the concept.  In our guided reading activity with the online textbook we also learned about the competitive exclusion principal which states that if two competitors try to occupy the same realized niche, one will eliminate the other.  Thankfully, however, we were able to keep the two from fighting extensively, but the few altercations they had definitely evidenced the possibility of such a fate!

On the whole, I thought it was an awesome week full of fun and activities through which we learned a lot about how organisms interact within different ecosystems, among other things. I really enjoyed the geckos, but I guess that's just because I love animals! Anyhow, that's all from me this week!  I hope y'all enjoyed my post and be sure to check out Cameron's as well!  Also, below is a link to the chapter about ecosystems in the online book, as well as one to a cool video I find about symbiotic relationships...enjoy!

Adios!

Will Maness

http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/unit/text.php?unit=4&secNum=0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSmL2F1t81Q