So while we realized that our dead stuff columns mimicked the environment where the dead badger died, the raccoon Mrs. Brinza found was on the side of the road where no soil or plants were. We decided our next best steps would be to set up an experiment which mimicked the side of the road, and Mrs. Brinza had a whole bunch of jars we could use...along with some strawberries in her fridge.
So we set up some "dead stuff jars" and will watch them over time. Strawberries are dead fruit from the strawberry plant, and we had some questions about how temperature, weather, light, and the surface something dies on affects what happens to dead stuff over time. Many of us predicted that the strawberries would get smaller over time, and then we asked, "What's the way something that's dead gets smaller?"
If something dead is going to get smaller, something living must be eating it. We will see if the fruit in our dead stuff columns gets smaller because we put living stuff in the columns. But we certainly didn't put anything living in our dead stuff jars...or at least that's what we think. But through a thoughtful discussion, if the strawberries do get smaller, we can probably conclude that there was something in the jars that we couldn't see. We agreed not to open the jars as a way to see if anything really small can eat it.
We also had a pretty intense conversation about how we could collect data on these columns and jars over time...and agreed to collect both qualitative data (through written words and drawings) along with quantitative data (weighing the strawberry to see if its weight decreases or stays the same). We'll have to wait some time for something to happen...because if these strawberries act anything like the badger did in the time lapse video, something didn't noticeably happen until Day 4-5 in the video.
So we set up some "dead stuff jars" and will watch them over time. Strawberries are dead fruit from the strawberry plant, and we had some questions about how temperature, weather, light, and the surface something dies on affects what happens to dead stuff over time. Many of us predicted that the strawberries would get smaller over time, and then we asked, "What's the way something that's dead gets smaller?"
If something dead is going to get smaller, something living must be eating it. We will see if the fruit in our dead stuff columns gets smaller because we put living stuff in the columns. But we certainly didn't put anything living in our dead stuff jars...or at least that's what we think. But through a thoughtful discussion, if the strawberries do get smaller, we can probably conclude that there was something in the jars that we couldn't see. We agreed not to open the jars as a way to see if anything really small can eat it.
We also had a pretty intense conversation about how we could collect data on these columns and jars over time...and agreed to collect both qualitative data (through written words and drawings) along with quantitative data (weighing the strawberry to see if its weight decreases or stays the same). We'll have to wait some time for something to happen...because if these strawberries act anything like the badger did in the time lapse video, something didn't noticeably happen until Day 4-5 in the video.
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