Gretchen Brinza
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Moving Onto to Worms...

3/29/2020

 
After figuring out the role that mold is playing in our Dead Plants Columns, we had lots of figuring out to do about worms.  We weren't really sure the role they were playing, so our next focus would be on worms!
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While we are out of school due to COVID-19, we are attempting our figuring out remotely.  

So we've read an article about what worms eat and even watched a video (linked below) about worms that belong to a home gardener.  These data sourced have  enabled us to figure out not only what they do in our Dead Plants Columns, but what happens when they've spent time significant time there!  
Since we figured out about worms' diet and that their castings enrich the soil, we built out various mathematical models to represent what was going on.  We attempted to use Google Chats to discuss each model, including their benefits and limitations in representing the phenomenon.
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Mrs. Brinza attempted to use Screencastify to help the class pull various models together into a consensus model!  

Consensus: Mathematical Model for Worms, Dead Plant Parts and Castings - Google Drawings.webm

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All this figuring out enabled us to make sense of what's been going on in our Dead Plants Columns as it relates to worms...the shrinking plant size and the darkening color were all due to the worm of worms!

More Fair Tests Practice, Figuring Out Mold Stuff!

3/20/2020

 
This week, we remotely practiced some fair test examples with dead plants, knowing just how important a controlled experiment is in trying to figure out what is causing change to something!  Here are some examples Mrs. Brinza set up in her notebook!
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Before we left school this week, there was an explosion of mold in almost all of our Dead Plants Columns and even in some of our jars!  Our jars are pretty much staying the same weight over time, and we've come to an agreement that changes can happens but all the pieces/particles are still in there somewhere (the lid plays a role in this for sure).


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We decided to focus on mold, as we had lots of mold questions and LOTS of mold everywhere.  Mrs. Brinza snapped a ton of pics before we left, so we had some good evidence of what was in our columns.
We read through a mold article and watched some pretty incredible mold videos, one of which was filmed right in our classroom before we left!
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Mold Time Lapse1

Video: ©2009 Nikolay A. Lariontsev. Music: Berceuse, Amethystium. This video is not for commercial purposes. This video is only for informative purposes! Spe...

Rotting Watermelon Decomposition Timelapse Footage

More rotting fruits and food at https://www.time-lapse-footage.com/stock-footage-clips/videos-fruits-and-food subscribe http://www.youtube.com/user/TEMP0NAUT...

After engaging in a a question/response format on Google Classroom, we agreed that the stuff in our Dead Plants Columns is indeed mold!  Mold is an organism that is consuming the dead plants, which totally make sense that our Dead Plants columns are getting smaller and the mold is getting bigger!

We also developed a mathematical model remotely....
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Mrs. Brinza even found an interesting finding about mold in the fast food industry...a great connection to how understanding science helps understand the world around us!
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Next steps...worms!

COVID-19 (School Closure Update)

3/20/2020

 
This week was a tough one. In light of the COVID-19 school closure, our "figuring out" has turned into a remote, e-learning experience.  I am completely aware of the access and equity issues this is presenting, and while I am trying to continue on with our Dead Raccoon unit and everything we set out to figure out, I have mixed emotions that not all of my students are having an equitable experience.

I will continue to blog here with what we're doing in hopes that those students who don't have access to what is happening over an online platform can return here to this space and see what we've done.  Again, not ideal at all, but I can't think of any other way to do this knowing there are many hurdles in the way right now.

Changes in the Dead Plants Columns...Recognizing Our Mistakes!

3/13/2020

 
After agreeing to document the changes in our dead plants columns, we are starting to see some amazing things happening!

Appearance of Mold/Fuzzy Stuff/Other Colored Things 

Size Change and Color 

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Worms Appearing to Get Larger and May Be Pooping?

Plant Growth (But differences between the plants)

When we sat in a scientist circle and tried to explain the causes for each of the changes in our columns, we started to realize that too many factors, or variables, could be causing the changes. This also opened up a slew of new questions regarding worms, mold, and plant growth, which we will need to address later  (we added new investigation ideas like research and new plant investigations).  

For this reason, we decided to run new investigations testing only ONE variable at a time. This way, we could pinpoint if that particular variable was making any change.  We agreed not to test this with worms, as that wouldn't be kind to put them into closed containers without access to air.  But we also had the idea to record the weight of the jars to gather any mathematical evidence for changes.  

We're testing the following variables:
1.  Size
2.  Squished
3. Soil
4. Sand
5.  Skin
6. Water
7. Heat
8. Cold
9. Light
​10. Dark
We've already got data in after just one day, and we're noticing the appearing of things yet the weight in the containers is remaining unchanged (or 0.1 gram b/c our scales may experiencing rounding errors).  This is super interesting to us that mold can appear on our plant parts yet the weight stays the same...


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We agreed we needed to focus on mold next!  What exactly is it?  How does it relate to dead stuff?

Next Steps After Larvae and Dead Animals: Dead Plants!

3/5/2020

 
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With figuring out so much about the dead animal and the bugs that visit it, we are starting to see that maybe dead stuff doesn't disappear, it just goes somewhere else.  The mathematical models we built are really helping us see some patterns between organisms living in an ecosystem together.

We went back to the DQB to realize that we can answer many questions, but we've still got some figuring out to do!  We've got lots of questions around dead plants and the factors that may affect them (and animals, too).  So we're putting our focus there next!
We went to town summarizing the variables we wanted to test, and assigned each group one of them so we can pool all our data together!

Each group agreed to build their model with stuff that includes dead plant parts (Mrs. Brinza and the students all agreed to bring things in) and we'll also have so other things available to mimic the natural environments as well.  Things like wind (a fan), sun (a heat lamp), nighttime (darkness in a closet) and age (really old berries)​!  And since all of these things were found in natural environments, we couldn't forget the ground!  We've got soil from outside and worms...of course there's worms in the soil, right?
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Building Our Dead Plant Columns--and Recording Changes through Drawings and Pictures Over Time!

    Have you ever seen something like the dead raccoon above?  Did it disappear?  

     

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