Plankton Wars (Arrghhh!!)

The piratical noise is there in the title because this day reminded me of pirates.  It involved war and water, and that was enough for my inner pirate to identify with.

Also, my group was pretty much Blackbeard, because our hypothetical plankton was victorious!

Our complex little plankton pirate at the end of its run in the tank (photo courtesy of Chris Colvin)

When I say complex here, I truly mean it.  I received some incredulous looks from my partner, Brandon, and the other people at the table as I continued to add onto Brandon's and my design (with constant input from said partner, however).

To begin with, a wooden toothpick was surrounded by light play dough.  Parallel at either end of this little post were small pieces of hollow plastic straw, blocked off with more pliable pink dough to retain air and buoyancy. 

Two hollow plastic cotton swabs criss-crossed across this apparatus.

Hanging below it all was a weight mechanism comprised of a rock held in between to soda tabs by play dough, held together by another toothpick, and suspended from the plankton by a small, zig-zagged piece of cloth which was in turn skewered by another toothpick around the main body of the plankton.

Whew.

Brandon felt here that our little pirate (well, he didn't call it that) would be better off with something to keep it from sinking too fast, and so we added the paper cupcake holder to the final toothpick.

And this is how Blackbeard the plankton was born!  I think that my group's attempt at balancing enough weight and sources of buoyancy was relatively successful.

In retrospect, Blackbeard could have been simpler.  The other winning team had a less extravagant format for their plankton, pictured below:

Karen, a member of the one other winning team (Captain Hook?) and her little plankton. (photo courtesy of Mrs. Richardson)

In general, however, the majority of the class's plankton prototypes were unsuccessful because they floated too easily.  Concerned that they would get poor times, my peers ensured that their little models wouldn't succumb to the proverbial craken of gravity.  However, the other plankton designs either floated on the surface of the water the entire time, or floated their until being tapped below the surface, at which point they plunged to the bottom of the tank.

Here I am with my prized war plankton:

Observation Site Four, Day Five

This site was awesome for a variety of reasons.

Mainly, because there were baby salamanders.

Sadly, I have no picture of said salamanders, but truly -- they were splendid.  They looked sort of like that creepy little lizard dinosaur from Jurassic Park with the fan neck that spread out while it hissed and shot acid.

Only, they were not creepy and they didn't shoot acid.  Nor were they lizards.

In lieu of an adorable salamander, regard this tiny waterfall of splendor.

My wonderful photographer for the day, Rosemary Harris, did happen to get a swell picture of a frog at this site (although I found my own shy little frog beside the waterfall, it ran away and refused to be photographed).

This is not the most amazing of pictures that Rosemary took, but I feel that she ought to be able to keep those to herself. :]

By this point, I did not want to go back inside at all, regardless of how thirsty I was.  It was warm and breezy, and people had actually quieted down in their yearning to return to school in time.  My favorite sound here was that of the water.


~~ All photos from this day are courtesy of Rosemary Harris ~~

Observation Site Three, Fabulous Day Five

And this site really was fantastical.

For the second time on this blog, I simply must reference fairies, because this bubbling little creek with its steep bank of vibrant moss is where they live, if anyplace.

Once we moved away from this almost frighteningly steep location, the ground leveled out and the creek took a straighter path.

We found various living creatures in the water, including water striders (which I have always found to be rather icky) and an adorable baby frog, which panicked and swam down to the bottom to hide beneath a leaf.

Even here in the shade, it was unusually warm, and the lively chatter of students continued.

Observation Site Two Day Fiiiiiive

This second site was a hint of new scenery to come, a glimpse of the sparse trees and tawny forest floor that made up the glades of today's expedition.

One of the trees, Mrs. Richardson hinted, was a tulip tree.  All of them swayed rather dizzily in some unseen, barely detectable breeze. 

I squinted into the treetops, attempting to find some unique little bird that had gone under the radar, but had no luck.

The only sounds now were (as the silence mandate had been lifted) students talking and the irate beeping of buses in reverse.

Observation Site One Day Five

On this truly gorgeous day, the class was out to count birds! (We found one seagull at a time, eight geese, and a crow).

However, we also did our usual observation sites!

And at site one, there were some geese! An absolute gaggle, really: eight whole geese!  It was warm and breezy, and the only sound was that of the buses and the occasional goose noise, as the class was under mass silent treatment.

Observation Site Three Day Four!

This third and final site was even more difficult to locate.  The conditions on the first and most algae-rich side of the pond  must have been most ideal, or perhaps it was the setting of the sun that made finding the final site so difficult.

But find it I did, however subtle it was.  The air was fast getting colder and I, in my pajama pants, wanted to get home and make a cup of tea when I came across this completely submerged bit of algae:

Even the geese had quieted down by this time, yet still remained, floating serenely along in the fading light of the evening.

I almost didn't want to leave the site, as it felt very private, almost zen in comparison to school.  But I had to go home and have that tea.

Observation Site Two Day Four :D

On the way to my site two, I saw some best friend geese floating along together along the opposite bank!

In spite of the lovely goose experience, however, I had a surprisingly hard time finding my next algae site. I had circled about three-fourths of the way back around the pond before I cam across a cheerful little outcropping of aquatic plants.  I think it was because this side of the pond was shadier, cooler as I walked across the boundary of trees and bamboo.  There were some disgruntled honks from my goosey companions, but otherwise the area around this photo was quiet, save for some wind:

It is darker in the photo than it was in person, but hopefully the little colony of algae surrounding this breached twig can be seen.

Site Observation One Day Four

On the official day for these observations, I was (sadly) absent from school, so I did not get to go on the epic walk of algae and falling trees here with Mrs. Richardson's class. :[

Fortunately, there is a magnificent pond right near my home! So, after school the next day, I made the trek back behind the house to seek out some fuzzy, green plant life!

This was the first and most bountiful patch of algae that I found.  It's absolutely thriving!

The first site I selected was at the bank of the pond nearest to the path, beside the pond's small wooden dock.  It was very quiet, much more so than observation sites at school, where buses and students' voices sound perpetually.

What's more, it was a wonderful day outside and only around five o'clock, so it was still quite warm.

Plankton Observations! How exciting...

This week, we didn't even have to leave the classroom to do some awesome observations; we had pond water!

So we grabbed some microscopes and got down to work observing microscopic life.  YAY, plankton!

This is a worm, tragically killed in the field of study. 

This first microscope shot is of a worm.  Due to its absence of plant characteristics, such as chlorophyll, it is a zooplankton. Though it is magnified, the worm was visible to the naked eye.  Thus, it is a macroplankton.  In addition, the fact that it is a worm means that it belongs to meroplankton, which are not plankton for their whole lives.  The worm had very obvious eyes and a mouth, further proving its animal nature.

The majority of the life we observed, however, was not so large, nor so obvious in its identity.




Here, we have a very faint appearance by a phytoplankton.

This "plant plankton" is, unlike the unfortunate worm above, a microplankton; it cannot truly be seen by an unaided human eye.  It is also classified as holoplankton, meaning that it is in plankton form for its entire life cycle.  In order to survive in its environment, this organism adapted to be free-floating, well in reach of sunlight and the ability of photosynthesis.

This slide provides a clearer look at the long, stranded holoplankton.  The green color of the chlorophyll is almost clear, even against a rather grainy image quality.

Similar to the photo above, this plankton is phytoplankton, in the oxygen-producing, photosynthesizing catagory.  However, its segements and green coloring are clear.  Still more phytoplankton clings to the edge of this image, appearing as green smudges.  On both phytoplankton slides, there is a noted lack of zooplankton qualities, such as flagella, marking these organisms for what they are.

This adorable photo is not of some new cereal, nor the inside of a kalaidescope.  It is sand from Star Beach, in Japan!

This sand is certainly exceptional.  This photo is particularly wonderful, considering that there appears to be a small crescent moon nestled amongst the star-shaped particles in the center of the photo.  It looks like these pieces of sand were, unlike most sand, living creatures at one point or another.  Some meroplankton, such as coral, becomes sand at one phase in its existence (after its demise, of course).

Observation Site Four Day Three!

This site was fabulous!

Why?

Because it was mushroom-themed.  Not that I'm some sort of mushroom fanatic, but it's hard to deny that they're pretty darn cool, and it's not so often that one finds a mushroom laying around in winter.

This was a little runt mushroom that I found after Mrs. Richardson discovered a larger one that everyone was taking pictures of.  I'm a mushroom rebel!  And look at the little blue dot.  I think it's a berry, and it was like that when I found it. :]

What may be even more fantastic is that the tree under which these mushrooms were found... looked like a giant mushroom! I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it, because the coincidence was just to swell.  But use your imagination. :D

This was also a cement graveyard, oddly enough, and on one chunk of cement there was a little pile of feces.  Woohoo!

My hands were numb by this point, but it was sunny and we were headed back inside, through the biting wind.

Observation Site Three Day Three :]

The next site was, as so many of them seem to be, a tree gravesite. 

This one was mottled with holes, evidence of birds and bugs, but also had a litte settlement of brown growths defying gravity as they emerged from the side of the wood. 

I know what it looks like, but I'm pretty sure this is not animal-made!

Dodging brambles as we crunched through the site, the road was still within earshot, but the air was getting colder (as it always seems to do the longer we are outside).

Observation Site Two Day Three

The next site was directly out of a birdy mystery novel.  It was carnage.

The forest floor, drowning in crunching pine needles and cones, was littered with evidence. . .

evidence of a murder!  Duck murder, that is.  There were enough duck feathers laying around to indicate that something bad probably went down concerning some little ducky.

Adding to the macabre air was the disconcerting sound of crows cackling just beyond the trees.

Oh, and we could also hear the road, which is a little less haunting but equally dangerous!

There was very little sunshine here so, standing beside the sad duck feathers, I shivered.

Observation Site One Day Threeee

The first site today was practically urban in comparison to what I've become accustomed to.  We were in the ninth grade courtyard.

Sadly, this man-made setting also came along with an ample supply of man-made trash.  Plastic cups, bags, napkins and gum wrappers littered the grass and shrubs.  The cheerful bubble of students talking and the aggressive hum of the vents over the commons area was fitting for where we were, but the sad state of the grounds was a little bit depressing.

Imagine my happy surprise, then, when I stumbled across this!

The Happiest (and Loneliest) Dandelion Ever

The air was warm, the breeze was cold, and this sunny little flower made me happier!