We were tasked with creating a terrarium that modeled a biome. We chose to make ours in a plastic container and centered it around moss. We used two types of moss, locale tree moss and store bought moss. Theses plants made up the producer category. Next we had to get animals to fill the decomposer and consumer categories. We caught worms and slugs to fill the decomposer category and chose a beetle as a consumer. In order to prevent rot, we first filled the jar with rocks and sand to allow water to drain. This was different than our original proposal to build the terrarium in a glass light bulb. We would have used sand, dead moss and air plant, a category of plant that does not need soil and uses its roots purely for attachment to other things. This idea was scrapped due to the size constraint put in place by Dr. LB as well has the fact that we could not put animals in this terrarium. The only real problem we had was our fish incident. We originally originally planted to do a hydroponic terrarium and for an animal we wanted a fish. So, we caught a fish. As you can imagine, this was disruptive to class and quite time consuming.
Reflection: After some time
We made our terrarium a few weeks ago and it may or may not be dead. So it turns out that living things need water. We watered at first but then kind of forgot. As far as pictures go, we have like two, which I will try my best to find. Our group learned what we needed to from the project but none of us is going to have a successful plant anytime soon. Our plants did not grow much but, as they died, they shrunk. Dead plant are good in the wilderness though. They provide nutrients for plants and decomposers. All good things except jellyfish, must die eventually but, we killed ours off as fast a McDonalds kills small children.