Class Review

On Monday, our class reviewed the food chain, producers, consumers, and decomposers. Plus we played a game on the Smart Board which helped us figure out which kind of animals would be in a certain spot on the food chain. Additionally, we completed a worksheet in our notebooks that talked about producers and consumers. One interesting fact I learned was organisms are either producers or consumers, depending on the source of their energy. Also, I learned that some food chains can keep going in circles and never end. In addition, I found out that the producers are usually at the bottom of the food chain. A piece of information that I found from another source is that a food chain is a linear sequence representing the nutrition of various species from the simplest plant to the carnivores on the top. Another fact I found was that top carnivores are usually the least numerous, largest, and most complex animals. I believe this subject is extremely important to understand because we need to know what eats what and how it will impact the environment. For example, if a decomposer eats all of the dead organisms in the environment, then we need to know how it will affect life around it. All in all, this is what we did in class on Monday, October 20th, what I learned, and how I feel about it.
I found all of my information from:
http://www.answers.com/carnivores
http://www.answers.com/food%20chain
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=food+chain&gbv=2

Carbon Dioxide Monsters!

In the article I read today, I read about diatoms and their history and how they can help the environment. Deborah Franklin(the author of the article) had a plastic container with shells of endless amounts of diatoms delivered to her from EaglePitcher Filtration and Minerals Inc. This place is where diatoms are mined from an ancient nearby lake bed. After studying them, she found out that the diatoms are used to filter wine and swimming pool water, polish teeth and silver, and serve as filler in concrete, plastics, and paper. Furthermore, organic gardeners sprinkle it around roses and tomatoes; instead of poisoning the pests,they use the sharp edges of the diatom shells' to cut the invaders to smithereens. However, there is one extremely beneficial task that the diatoms have managed to complete, which is disposing huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Scientists believe that they can do this by taking carbon dioxide and sinking it into the ocean's depths, letting the diatoms take care of the rest. I believe this could actually turn out badly because in the article, it says, "It could backfire, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by spurring the growth of the marine bacteria that feed on dead diatoms." In addition, marine biologist Kate Bidle, at the Rutgers marine institute and an expert on diatom ecology says, "I could see significant warming happening even faster than anyone's imagined." Additionally, Bidle and others say no one can predict how dumping iron into the ocean would affect marine life in the long run. All in all this was an extremely fascinating article on how diatoms can benefit and harm the earth's atmosphere.
I received my information from: The Smithsonian Magazine.
I also found my image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diatoms_through_the_microscope.jpg