1 / 14

Kids Do Ecology!

Kids Do Ecology!. with Derek and Stephanie. What is ecology?. Ecology is the scientific study of how living things interact with each other and their environment. Today: Begin an experiment examining how acidic water, which is a result of ocean

isabella-adrian
Télécharger la présentation

Kids Do Ecology!

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Kids Do Ecology! with Derek and Stephanie

  2. What is ecology? Ecology is the scientific study of how living things interact with each other and their environment.

  3. Today: Begin an experiment examining how acidic water, which is a result of ocean acidification, affects the shells of marine organisms such as mussels and clams.

  4. How are living things affected by the changing environment?

  5. OCEAN ACIDIFICATION • More acid in the water makes it difficult for organisms such as corals, mussels, sea urchins, and clams, to build shells.

  6. OCEAN ACIDIFICATION Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (the air) mixes with the ocean water and makes it more acidic. • More acid in the water makes it difficult for organisms such as • corals, mussels, sea urchins, and clams, to build shells, which • are made of mostly calcium. This is for two reasons: • It’s harder for them to grow new shell because there is less calcium in the water. • The acid also directly dissolves the calcium in the already existing shell.

  7. How do we measure acidity in the water? pH in the ocean is dropping!

  8. Everything in the environment is connected, so if marine organisms with shells are affected, many others are affected as well.

  9. You will come up and get 2 cups of shells. • Then you will weigh each cup on the scale. • WHAT IS THE WEIGHT, IN GRAMS, OF • EACH CUP? • Write this down in your notebook and on the • sticky paper and stick it on the cup and.

  10. Next, you will get a cup of vinegar, a cup of • water, and two pH strips. • Gently swirl the pH strips in each cup. • WHAT IS THE pH OF EACH CUP? • Pour the vinegar over one cup of shells and • the water over the other cup of shells. • Write down the pH of each on the sticky • paper on the cup and in your notebook.

  11. 3. We will leave the shells in the vinegar and water for 1 week. After 1 week we will weigh each cup and see if there is a change in the weight of the shells. Based on what you learned about ocean acidification, if the shells in the vinegar decreased in weight, whereas the shells in the water did not, what does this suggest?

  12. WRITE THESE DOWN IN YOUR NOTEBOOK: IS THE WATER OR THE VINEGAR MORE ACIDIC? DO YOU HYPOTHESIZE THAT THE SHELLS IN THE VINEGAR OR WATER WILL CHANGE WEIGHT? WILL THE WEIGHT GO UP OR DOWN? WHY DO YOU THINK SO?

  13. HOW SCIENCE WORKS: Hypothesis, Prediction Draw Conclusions Experiment, Measurements Analyze data The Scientific Method

  14. Note: You will need to use the same type of shells to put in the water and vinegar for comparison. We gave the students the option of using mussels or sea urchin shells (or ‘tests’). The urchin tests were almost gone after a week in vinegar and our scale was not sensitive enough to detect the remaining weight. Although this still showed that the acidic solution was damaging the calcium carbonate shell, it would have been better to have a more sensitive scale or to have left the shells in vinegar for a shorter period of time. At the end of the experiment we had the students graph the % weight change of the shells in vinegar and the shells in water.

More Related