Week 11

The water at our bottom of our terrarium still seems to be very murky. I can no longer see our dead guppy at the bottom of our terrarium due to all of the algae that has grown. Our string of our terrarium also seems to have darkened most likely because of the dirt. The top of our terrarium seems to still have at least some signs of life. Although the top of our bean plants seemed to have developed some type of fungus there seems to have been smaller leaves that have grown from the steps of the plants.

Our soil has also developed some type of beans shredding. We also noticed that there seems to be an increase of condensation on the side of the bottle and also it looks like the water might be coming out from where we taped the two bottles together.

I am really interested to see what would happen to the stuff in our terrarium if we poked a hole on top of the terrarium. I wonder if it will help our plants grow but I also wonder if there will be a funky smell to it. I hope that we get to have some answers to these questions as we move forward with this exciting terrarium experience. Another idea that we thought of is possibly covering up the whole terrarium with newspaper and see what will happen.

Weight of our terrarium: 1kg 409.3

Change for next week:  Cover it with newspaper to not allow light to come in

 Bottom of our terrarium (hardly visible) 

 String of our terrarium 

 Top of our terrarium 

It looks as if though new plants began growing on the side of the stem 

Mold in our plants

Week 10

 Full terrarium 

 Mold on the beans 

 Our dead guppy :( 

Beans! 

 

As we observed our terrarium we noticed that there were a lot of changes since we first made our terrarium. The water level of our water has decreased and also the water seems to be very murky. It took us a while to find our guppy since it is entangled with everything that is down there. We also noticed that our string of our terrarium turned darker meaning that there was probably mold growing on it possibly because of the water.

The weight of our terrarium as of today is 411 grams. It decreased since we first made our terrarium. I feel that this was because of the evaporation of the water. The top of our terrarium also seems to be deteriorating. The plants seem to be becoming transparent and we also noticed that the beans that are on the dirt floor of our terrarium have mold on them.

Overall I really enjoyed doing this terrarium. I learned a lot from looking at the terrarium from week to week. I am sad that the guppy didn't get to survive through the whole terrarium experience but I myself benefited a lot from the observation and was able to think of ways in which I can incorporate this type of activity in my future classroom!

Weights of our Terrarium throughout the semester

Week 1: 458 g

Week 2: 461 g

Week 3: 456.6 g 

Week 5: 440g 

Week 8: 411 g

Week 9

Bad News! As we went to look at our terrarium we saw that our Guppy had died. Although it seems to have grown much more bigger than when we first put it in our terrarium it passed away. I wonder what caused it to pass away? Could it have been because it ran out of food? Or maybe it got lonely? I'm going to search it up to find out how long guppy's typically live.

Our Guppy :( 

On another not we did see snails at the bottom of our terrarium and it looks like they might have grown as well. We had originally thought that the snails had died a while back but maybe they were just hiding. We are not quite sure if they are still alive now but if they are then that it great.

Snails 

The top of or terrarium seems to be deteriorating also as time passes by. The leaves seem to look very dry and are even beginning to change color. This is probably due to the fact that they are not receiving the adequate amount of water that they should be receiving. We also noticed that there are seeds from the beans falling into the soil.

Top of our terrarium 

Week 6

Today as we picked up our terrarium from the third floor at Sanchez we noticed that something was a little odd. We saw that the bottom of our terrarium there was a creature that we embedded in between all of the algae at the bottom of the terrarium. At first I got a little sad and thought that it was our guppy that was in there dead but then after further investigation we noticed that it was actually our snail that we hadn't seen in a long time. As of right now it looks like it is dead and it may have just floated to the top but we are still unsure at the time. Our guppy is still alive and it seems to be getting bigger as time

The top of our terrarium is still looking good although I feel that the plants are really looking for some space that they can grow into because they continue to bend as if they want to escape from this terrarium. There is also beand that are growing on the stems of the plants which was very interesting to me.

We did a colored drawing of our terrarium as shown below. I think that this is a very beneficial way to see a terrarium because you are able to see all of the details that are inside of the terrarium and can then display it in a way that can illustrate it all.

Colored Drawing of our terrarium

Week 5

Today when we picked up our terrarium and when I put it on my desk I noticed that my hand had gotten wet. So from that I inferred that the water is coming out one way or another. Maybe that can explain why our terrarium is loosing weight. The plants are also starting to bend but they look like they are dying down a little. I really wish that we could open up our terrarium so that we could give our plants some water and feed our guppy some more food so that it can continue to grow.

We were happy to see that our guppy was still alive and moving very fast. And it also looks like it is having fun however, I really wish that he could have some friends so that he could have someone to play with. I really couldn't imagine being all alone in an enviroment without anyone to play with.

Our plants still continue to grow but they are bending more and more as the weeks go by. As the weeks go by I am really hoping that our guppy continues to survive in the environment.

Drawing of our Terrarium

Week 4

Our plants still seem to be growing and our guppy is still moving. We noticed that it is moving at a much faster rate than last week and it seems that our guppy is still even bigger than before. Our water is very clean and although almost all of our creatures are dead our guppy is still swimming and continues to swim through the water faster than he was swimming last week.

Out plants are also growing. They seem to even be bending because there is no more place for them to grow in. The shells of the beans are also on the plants and also on the sides of the bottle which is very interesting. 

The weight of our terrarium is 1 kg 456.6 which is less than what it was last week. Its probably because the soil is getting very moist.

Until next time...

 Our plants have touched the top of the bottle

 Top of the terrarium 

Bottom of our terrarium 

 

 What seems to be our snail

Our Guppy!

Week 3

Terrarium Week 3:

Week three, and our plants are growing very tall. All three of our bean plants grew up to the top of our bottle and they are all about the same height with one leaf at each of the plants. Our guppy is still alive and swimming at the bottom of the terrarium. We have noticed that the guppy is swimming at a much slower pace than usual. It probably just woke up or maybe it’s tired. The rest of the terrarium looks the same from the week before and the water even seems to be at the same height as it was last week. We also noticed that the shell of the beans are falling and are sticking to the sides of the bottle. Our snails also do not seem like they are moving which is very sad also we noticed that the shrimp may have been eaten all the way because there is no sign that they are alive. Another observation that we noticed is that there is still condensation on the side of the bottle but there seems to be much less than last week. 

This week’s weight: 1KG 461 grams

 The Bottom of Our Terrarium 

Our plants have hit the top of our terrarium

Our guppy is still hanging in there

Week two :/

We have some life! As we grabbed out terrarium we noticed that some plants had grown out of our soil. One of the beans that we planted grew out to about two inches which was very impressive for me.

But.. as we looked for the animals that we had put in the bottom of our terrarium we noticed that the shrimp were dead and the snails were at the bottom of our terrarium. The guppy however is still swimming around the very happily looking for some friends. The shrimp however have gone to another world sadly. 

We did notice that there is condensation around the bottle which we are told it is a good sign. I really hope that out beans grow out to be tall and awesome and that our guppy manages to stay alive throughout this journey. Hopefully there is enough food for both of them even though the shrimps are gone now.  

We weighed out fish tank and it weighs 1 whole kilogram and 458 grams. I think that over time the terrarium will get heavier because plants will start to grow and maybe with all of the condensation the dirt will get more moist and thus be more heavier which will cause the terrarium to be more heavier as well.

 

Our plants are beginning to grow. How exciting!

Day One

Day One

I was very interested and excited to begin building our terrarium. I loved putting it all together and saw how I could implement this same project in my future classroom.

Getting started was a bit scary to begin with. I didn't really have any idea where to begin. After we started putting it all together we were able to see it all come together. When we added a snail I started to see it come together as a full ecosystem. We added two small snails as well as a couple of shrimps. One of the shrimps was bigger than the other one.

After we added one guppy we added algae as well as water and pebbles. I was so interested to see that the guppy kept moving all over the place while the snail and the shrimp moved not so very fast. I was so interested in the guppy that I completely forget about the shrimp and the snails.

The top part of the terrarium was very easy to build because it just consisted of the dirt and the seeds. I am very excited to see how the terrarium ends up being at the end of the semester and really looking forward to the changes that will occur at the end of the semester