My students need snails, goldfish, soil, sand, gravel, pill bugs, and plants to make an Ecosystem inside a soda bottle.
Take care of the earth and she will take care of you. ~Author Unknown Most of my students have not yet discovered the basic biological principles of aquaculture species. I want my students to be able to construct and maintain an aquatic ecosystem in a 2-liter bottle.
My class is filled with wonderful and diverse students who are very eager to learn.
Our school is located in a low-income community which can make teaching a challenge at times. The shortage of funds makes it difficult for us to get the materials needed for this project.
Our students will be creating an aquatic ecosystem inside a 2-liter bottle. The sand will be used to cover some of the bottom of the bottle. They will then take some of the elodea plants and stick them into the sand. The duckweed will be sprinkled onto the surface of the water. The bottle will be allowed to sit for about 24 hours in order to allow the sand and chlorine to settle. Our students will observe these aquatic habitats for over 4 weeks and record what they see like changes in population, plant growth, water quality, and animal growth. They will learn about this specific type of system and how life is interconnected. They will also witness that when one living thing is affected in the system, so are they all.
These donations will help our students learn important early scientific skills, like observing, measuring, classifying, communicating data, and predicting.
They will also learn that an ecosystem is a set of interconnected processes that depend on each other for their function. It includes air, water, soil, animals, plants and bacteria in that zone. This project will change our students’ lives for the better because they will all make their own ecosystems from plastic bottles.