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Showing posts from May, 2004
Ecosystem in a Jar / Biosphere ACTIVITY: BUILD A BIOSPHERE As you see on FRONTIERS in Going to Extremes, the middle depths of the ocean are a unique ecosystem, home to some bizarre creatures never before seen. In this activity, you will design and build your own biosphere based on a single ecosystem. OBJECTIVE Design and observe a mini-ecosystem. An ecosystem is a system that has input and output by living and nonliving things knit together as an organized unit. Input can be in the form of energy from the sun or rainwater introduced into the ecological unit. Output is what the ecological unit produces, such as heat, carbon dioxide, oxygen or waste products. To make your biosphere habitable for life, start with soil, air and water - the media that support the "bios" (life) in the biosphere. You will also need to provide food for the inhabitants inside their enclosed environment. If you throw a bunch of plants, soil, water and creatures into a glass container and seal i