“What can Nature teach us about Sustainability?

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Exhibition Checklist

Required components
Technical visual
● Diorama of the russian olive tree and its impact
One-pager “Artist’s Statement” to accompany visual that includes
The issue your visual is showing
How the issue connects to sustainability and your bottle ecosystems
Solutions
Quotes or information from your expert interview if applicable
Summary of your thoughts on the issue
*These can be scattered on small text boxes throughout your project, or on one single
Page
** You can use what you have already written in your Research Template, you’ll just
need to add some of what you’ve learned from your interview, and your final thoughts
on what you’ve learned.
In Durango, Colorado, which is a local community in SW Colorado, there are multiple
invasive species, plants and animals that affect the ecosystem and how the native species
survive. I ask, How can we as a community find a solution to help balance the native species
with the invasive species without affecting the natural ecosystem? Just looking at the
Russian Olive tree, specifically, it affects the natural animal and plant diversity by
overgrowing on rivers and creek sides. These trees take over the land causing and altering
the natural flooding system. This then reduces availability of nutrients and moisture to
other native plants such as the willow tree and cottonwood tree. This issue connects to
sustainability in my bottle ecosystem because the Russian Olive tree would take over the
whole ecosystem. It acts like a weed that just doesn't go away, ruining my man-made
ecosystem. This invasive plant uses up energy flow through the food chain, oxygen cycle,
carbon cycle, clearing of wastes, water cycle, and the natural flow of the local ecosystem.
Solutions that are being used locally are to continuously cut down the trees and get the
roots so they do not grow. It is highly recommended to not bring in and plant more of these
trees. They have nasty thistles and mostly affect the water sources for other native plants.
Jacob Mandell from Conservation Legacy said, “the most effective way to take out a Russian
Olive tree is with the chainsaw.” He also said, “It's definitely a problem in Colorado.”
My thoughts on the issue is this, I agree with Jacob Mandell that we need to continue
working together as a community to narrow down the numbers through local resources
(“We hire over 207 teens and people a summer to help cut the trees down” JM) and not
planting this species anymore. It's obviously an issue because it costs money every year to
get rid of a species that keeps coming back. I also learned that Conservation Legacy is a
great local nonprofit company that helps maintain invasive species, specifically the Russian
Olive tree. Jacob Mandell was really fun to talk to and I surprisingly found myself
interested in what he was talking about.

A timeline of key events from your bottle ecosystem (1 per group)

Optional components
Captions for all your graphs describing what each one showed.
Diagrams of the carbon cycle, or nitrogen cycle. You can use your drawings from earlier
in the year.
“Character cards” explaining each organism in your bottle ecosystem and the ecological
role it played No

Questions for Exhibition

Prepare to answer all of the questions below verbally at the exhibition.

Analysis Questions

All of the following questions are answered thoughtfully and in detail. Each response should be
about 4-6 sentences, and include at least one specific observation from your bottle ecosystem.

Describe at least three ecological interactions you observed between the living
organisms in your aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Three ecological interactions I found with our ecosystem were: the cricket had an effect
on ivy but died, worms cleaned the soil, snails had babies, and the box elder was
 introduced a couple days after we stopped caring for the ecosystem. I don't have a
conclusion for that species. Did he survive? Those bugs seem to live forever and are
everywhere.

What happened to your ecosystem that was out of your control and not something you
anticipated in your design, and what was its effect?

Things that were out of our control were: We did not think cricket would die. He only
lasted a half of the month. The snail on the other hand had babies, which I did not think was
possible because there was only one snail in the ecosystem. The ph and ammonia went up after
this. The box elder ate the cricket, providing nutrients for the soil and the box elder.

If you were to do this investigation again with what was originally provided, how would
you modify your design in order to increase the odds of survival of all your living
organisms?

I wouldn't change a thing, because my design was simple and effective for what we were
learning. It could hold a lot, water source, plants, animals and from the obvious the snail
reproduced showing the environment was stable enough for it to survive.

If you were to do this investigation again but were not limited by materials, time or living
things, what would you create and why? (Be creative and dream big but remember –
you are still trying to achieve the goal of creating a sustainable ecosystem in a bottle)

If I had no limitations, I would make it larger, like the size of a bin. I would get snails,
crawfish, spiders, and grasshoppers that were bigger and so that the more dominant
species could have food. Showing a complete environment/ecosystem to see what
would happen.

Conclusion Questions Follow claim, evidence, analysis format.

Claim = your answer to the question

Evidence = observations from your bottle ecosystem that support

Analysis = how your observations relate to and support your claim.

Describe three ways in which nutrients did cycle as you predicted in your hypothesis.
The rainforest is the design, the Water source evaporated would go through the tube in
a bottle and transfer into the ecosystem, making it dampen the soil and have things
grow and produce. It is a great way to provide water in that environment. It's a cool
source idea.

Describe three ways in which nutrients did not cycle as you predicted in your hypothesis

The plants in water did not grow but the plants in the ecosystem bottle did. Maybe
because there wasn't enough sunlight, the cricket didn't die yet, providing enough food
to the worm or soil. However, I think it did provide nutrients because our ecosystem
seemed to do quite well.. Unsure about the final answer to this.

Overall, how is your model like a real ecosystem?

Our model was like a real ecosystem because things died, things reproduced and things
grew just like a real ecosystem that sustained itself. The snail reproduced. The cricket
died and the Elder bug survived by eating the other plants and animals.

How is your model different from a real ecosystem and what are its limitations?

My model is different from a real life model because a real ecosystem has bigger
animals, bigger plants, and more room to help create/grow. It shows how the nutrients
cycle and how the ecosystem survives. Our ecosystem was smaller and had limitations
such as, less room, smaller plants and animals. There are also all different kinds of
ecosystem like the ocean and desert so there's that. We were limited to one or two
types of ecosystems.

How do you think what you learned from your model could apply to the sustainability of
real-world ecosystems? [This is where you connect what you learned in your bottle
ecosystem to the sustainability issue you are researching].

I learned that from whatever environment you create or is, like desert, rain forest,
Ocean, or icelike environment it can all be similar. If you don't have a natural cycle
creating life, death, growth, water, it doesn't work and then when you add in invasive
creatures that take away the natural balance then you get nutrient deficiencies. For
example, the russian olive tree takes over the water source for many of the native plants
and it takes away the nutrients or food for those plants to survive and so it creates a
negative impact on the land and animals around it.