This Week in Science (Carrying Capacity and Relationships)

Well this week in science we played a game, called "OH DEER". The game was to teach us about carrying capacity in a habitat. We had two groups of students, one group were the "deer" in the habitat and the other group was the "limiting factors". The resources of the group were water, food and shelter. we had the two groups face opposite directions and the "limiting factors" and "deer" groups would have to pick to either be water, food or  shelter. For food the would put both hands on their stomach, for water they would have to put their hands over their mouth and for shelter they had to make a roof over their head with their hands. Then when the teacher would say "ready, get set, Go" the two groups would turn to face each other and the deer would have to run to the resources they chose. If they didn't get their resource they would die. Then we graphed our data on the game. The carrying capacity the number of organisms any environment can support. Limiting factors are the available energy, water, oxygen and minerals, and the ability of ecosystem to recycle the remains of dead organisms ( activities of bacteria and fungi )
We learned how organisms interact in their environment. We learned the symbiotic relationships, which were, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. In order to understand these better, we watched some videos and played a card game. In the game we had to match different situations with the type of relationship it belonged to. The mutualism relationships is when both animals benefit from the relationship, an example of this would be when a bird picks the bugs and dead skin off an animal, they're both benefitting from this.. The commensalism relationship is when one animal benefits from it but the other is unaffected from it, for example when an animal kills its prey and doesn't finish it and another animal follows it and eats the remains. Parasitism relationships is when a parasite lives off the host, an example of this would be when a tick lives off a dog, by sucking its blood.

This is a picture of when we finished playing the card game. All the situations matched with the relationship they belong in.

First Impressions

Well when i first found out we were dissecting frogs i got hype ! because i always wanted to dissect a frog ! i couldnt wait i was so excited. first we just cut it open and looked at what it had inside. we discovered that our frog turned out to be a female cause it had eggs inside. then the next day we got to take out all its organs. the heart, the liver, the stomach, the small and large intestines and the eggs of course. then we ended up throwing it away, which i found cruel ! we should of at least given it a burial lol. But anyway i had fun being the surgeon :] cutting it open and seeing whats inside. i had classmates who were helping, like the assistant and the navigator who was in charge of telling what to do and cut. overall it was an awesome experience :D

My Fantasy Habitat

this week in science we had to find an animal we wanted to research and draw their habitat using the facts we researched. i chose to do a spider monkey because i have always wanted one >.< so i did some research about them and found out the abiotic and biotic features that are in its habitat. then i started to draw my fantasy habitat. it was difficult at first but then i concentrated and got it done, it came out looking pretty awesome if i do say so myself :]
well i actually learned some interesting things about spider monkeys. i learned that not all of then are the same. i always thought there was only one type of spider monkey but now i know that there's more types.i also learned that spider monkeys diets consist of more fruits and nuts than meat or insects. i mostly learned about the black columbian spider monkey. so i learned about the black columbian spider monkey and his habitat and all the biotic and abiotic features in its habitat, such as banana and bamboo trees, ferns and shrubs, and other animals like jaguar, frogs, snakes and insects.