Portfolio: City High School's Ecobottle Investigations Portfolio

Investigation

Sloth Group Ecobottle Investigation

Sloth2, Sloth3, and Sloth1
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window

© 2005 Sloth3

Introduction

This is all about our ecobottle. It's an assignment that our teachers gave to us during science class. We made this ecobottle to see what would happen if we made an environment that would survive on its own. There are three different environments in the bottle. There is an aquatic environment, a decomposition environment, and a terrestrial environment

Procedure

 Step 1:

 Step 2:     *Aquatic*

 Step 3:    *Decomposition*

 Step 4:     *Terrestrial*

 Step 5:

Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
            

Both images © 2005

(Left: un-finished ecobottle. Right: finished ecobottle. Yay!)

Hypothesis

The general hypothesis was that everything would die by the end of the 60 day observation period. We thought the snail would die within a week. We thought the grass would die by the third week, and the rest of the plants would die within four weeks.

Terrestrial

In the terrestrial section we predicted that if we planted grass seeds, they probably won't grow that much. We also thought the two snails in this section would die on the third day due to the lack of food provided to them.

Decomposition  

In the decomposition section we predicted that each day the apple slices would get darker until they completely molded and disappeared. We also predicted that the snail in this area would die within five days as well.

Aquatic

In the aquatic level we predicted that there would be spreading algae by the day, the first day it would stay in one place, second day it would spread a little bit, third day would spread even more, forth day it would float to the top, the fifth day it would begriming growing profusely, and so on throughout the course of 60 days.

Observation

Date - 9/30 Time - 9:50
Date - 10/4 Time - 11:00
Date - 10/6 Time - 10:40
Date - 10/7 Time - 10:45
Date - 10/10 Time -  10:37
Date - 10/11 Time - 11:02
Date - 10/18 Time - 10:46
Date - 10/21 Time - 9:45
Date - 10/27 Time - 11:05
Date - 10/29 Time - 9:40
Date - 10/31 Time - 10:11
Date - 11/3 Time - 11:07
Date - 11/4 Time - 9:32
Date - 11/7 Time - 9:33
Date - 11/17 Time - 11:01
Date - 11/21 (Last Day) Time -  9:47

Analysis:

Overall our ecobottle changed in a lot of ways. The water went from being like crystal clear to pitch black. It was one of the grossest, smelliest things ever. There was a lot of grass growing right away. The grass grew so tall we couldn't find the snail in the grass. The only way we could find it was if we watered the bottle so it would come out. The snail grew really big and all the fruit in the decomposition area went away by the end.

document iconView SlothOrganisms.xls      Graph of what lived and what died.

document iconView SlothTempThruTimeGraph.xls     Graph of aquatic temperature over time.

Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window

© 2005 Sloth3

  1. What animals thrived in your ecobottle? By the end of our experiment, the only animal that had survived in our ecobottle was one snail, living in the terrestrial section.
  2. Why do you think these animals thrived? We think our snail survived and grew bigger because we planted plenty of plants for it to eat. For that period before the plants grew, we put in lettuce for it to eat.
  3. What plants thrived in your ecobottle? Our grass grew very well and tall. I'm proud of our grass! Beans and radishes sprouted, the algae did great, and the elodea stayed alive but didn't do very well.
  4. Why do you think these plants thrived? We planted a LOT of grass seeds, watered our bottle often, and kept our bottle in the sun during the day.
  5. What animals died quickly in your ecobottle? Our snail that was living in the decomposition section died quickly.
  6. Why do you think these animals died? Our snail in the decomposition died due to lack of food. I think if we put more food inside for it to live on, it would have survived a bit longer.
  7. What plants died quickly in your ecobottle? None of the plants that we planted died. The elodea plants didn't die, but if we kept them in our ecobottle any longer, it might have.
  8. Why do you think these plants died? Well, they didn't!
  9. What would you do differently next time to improve the long-term survival of the plants and animals you selected? We would add more animals to the bottle so it'll be more interesting to observe. We also would put in better filters between each section, and more rotting food in the Decomposition section.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we learned that it is possible to have a living system inside another container, just like the biosphere 2, but smaller. We didn't learn much more than that. In the bottle itself, we learned that we really didn't need to water it as much as we did. In fact, it was better if we watered it only once every 2 weeks or so so the water wouldn't get all gross and dirty after watering it. We think we should have put screens in the caps and maybe added less soil. We would also only water it once every other week instead of once a week and start out with less water in the aquatic section. In the end, we decided that we'd never do this again, it was fun while it lasted, but in our opinion all those animals and organisms would be much better off on their own, un-messed with.

Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window

© 2005

Information on the Internet

  • Annenberg Media: Bottle Biology  The Bottle Biology site is a great place to learn about how to make ecocolumns.
  • Wisconsin Fast Plants  The Fast Plants site provides a wealth of information on how to use special types of plants for ecobottle investigations.

Learning Information

About This Page

Author: Sloth2, Sloth3, and Sloth1
Classroom Project: LKS Ecobottle
City High School
Tucson, Arizona U.S.A.

License: Tree of Life & Partners uses only - Version 1.0

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to , City High School

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About This Portfolio
Many thanks to:

Jeff Hartman
City High School

Lisa Schwartz
University of Arizona


University of Arizona

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Jeff Hartman at , Lisa Schwartz at , and Kathryn Orzech at

All Rights Reserved.

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