For this project in Science we learned about ecosystems, how they work and how humans effect them in positive and negative ways.

Scratch Project 

 The first thing we learned about was the interconnectedness of the animals and environment around them. This was the topic of our first keystone. For the keystone we had to create a scratch program that represented an ecosystem. This program had to have at least 10 animals. The different animals/living things I had in my forest ecosystem were ..

Shrubs , acorns, flies, frogs, ravens, squirrels, bobcats, coyote’s, deer and hawks.

Here is my scratch program, you can see how these different animals interact with each other in the natural ecosystems. 

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/732554274/

How do Humans effect this ecosystem?

Some ways that humans effect this environment is through logging. When we take away these animals environments it has a lot of consequences. Some animals have adapted to living in city environments fairly well like crows, raccoons and squirrels, but animals like deer, frogs and bobcats fully rely on the forest as their shelter and source of food.

The GIF

We had to create a gift explaining Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification. I drew my GIF in procreate and I feel like I did a good job for my first time animating something.

Here’s my GIF…

Bioaccumulation- Bioaccumulation is the slow accumulation of substances, such as pesticides, micro plastics and chemicals, in an animal or organism.

Biomagnification- Biomagnification is when substances such as pesticides, micro plastics and chemicals travel up the food chain when one animal is consumed by another.

News Report

The next thing we learned about was different types of animal conservation techniques. I was in a group of 4 people and we made a news report on the conservation of the kelp forests off the coast of California. 

There is a ongoing problem with the destruction of kelp forests off of the coast of California. Overpopulation of purple sea urchins is leading to the destruction of kelp forests as they are eating the kelp faster than the kelp can grow back. There are a variety of reasons why the urchin population has been expanding at such an increasing rate, such as the decline of natural predators and warming waters. Some restaurants have been introducing purple urchin to their menus to try and minimize their population, and the University of Washington is growing sea stars to release onto the coast of California as they are a natural predator of the sea urchins.

Instagram Posts

The last thing we did was make 5 instagram posts about 5 different environmental topics. 

We used a website called generatestatus.com to generate these example posts.

The cycles 

The Carbon cycle is crucial for keeping our environment stable. Carbon gives us the energy we need to sustain an economy on earth and it sustains the plants and animals we need to eat. Carbon moves around the planet in many ways. When we burn fossil fuels we emit carbon into the atmosphere, that carbon is then used by the plants in the form of photosynthesis. Animals will then eat the plants and when they die and start to decompose the carbon from their body will go into the ground creating the fossils fuels we burn, a full cycle. Humans have a huge impact on this cycle. We emit a huge amount of carbon into the air from car exhaust to multi million dollar company productions burning coal and other fossil fuels. This Carbon is one of the main sources of climate change. As the world heats up the icebergs melt and the ocean  levels rise. Also ecosystems are getting destroyed because of additional natural disasters happening each year.

Biomagnification

Biomagnification is a huge problem for our environment. Many micro plastics are released into the ocean from laundry machines. A piece of clothing can shed up to 700,000 micro plastics with every wash, these micro plastics go straight to the ocean where fish and other animals will eat them. The huge problem with having this many micro plastics is Biomagnificaton. For example if every fish ate one micro plastic and then a seal ate 100 fishes, that seal would have 100 micro plastics in it. Then if a polar bear ate 100 seals it would have 10,000 micro plastics in it. Having this many micro plastics inside of you can lead to poisoning and sometimes death. 

Wildlife management 

There is a huge problem with the destruction of kelp off the coast of California. There is an overpopulation of sea urchins which are eating the kelp at a faster rate then the can kelp grow back. There are a variety of reasons why the urchin population has been expanding at such a huge rate, such as a decline of natural predators and warming waters. There are now millions of purple urchins coating to sea floor. Some restaurants have been introducing urchin to there menus to try an minimize their population, and the university of Washington is growing sea stars to release onto the coast of California to eat the sea urchins .

The earths spheres 

There are many different spheres that create the earth around us. There are 5 main spheres biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, cryosphere. 

Biosphere-  The biosphere makes up all the living things around us. Humans impact this sphere a lot by unbalancing the ecosystem by hunting, deforestation and exploiting our food resources.

Hydrosphere- The hydrosphere is all the water on earth, including lakes, ponds, seas and oceans. Humans impact the hydrosphere by polluting our waters. Everyday about 8 million pounds of plastic end up in our ocean. These plastics are toxic to the animals and plants that need the ocean to survive. 

Atmosphere- The atmosphere is the mixture of gases that surround our earth. Humans are polluting the air by emitting Co2 into our atmosphere which is causing our earth to heat up. The Co2 acts like a blanket around the planet keeping heat in but not letting it out. Sadly every year we are emitting more and more Co2, in 2020 alone we emitted almost 35 million metric tons of Co2. 

Geosphere- The geosphere is all the rocks and minerals on earth. Humans are drilling into the earths crusts and extracting all of these minerals and rocks faster than they can replenish. We mine stuff like coal, gold, copper and various types of metal. We are also extracting a huge amount of oil to burn for energy.

Cryosphere-  The cryosphere is all of earths frozen water. This includes things like glaciers, ice fields and icebergs. As the earth heats up more due to human co2 emissions the ice is melting at a rapid rate which is causing rising sea levels. In 30 years these cites are predicted to be underwater Amsterdam (Netherlands), Basra (Iraq), New Orleans (USA), Venice (Italy) and many others.  

 

Food webs

The whole ecosystem relies on stable food webs. A food web is a natural interconnection of food chains. There are many different food webs for different biomes and ecosystems. For my project I did the forest ecosystem. One main thing humans do that effects this ecosystem is logging. Most animals I showed in my food web rely on the forest environment for shelter and food, but humans are cutting down millions of trees a year destroying these animals habitats. This can affect certain species in the ecosystem like bobcats, bears and coyotes which rely on the forest more than animals like raccoons and ravens. If there are less top predators the ecosystem becomes unbalanced and that’s when overpopulation or extinction happen. In my food web every other animal relies on each other to stay fed or to keep the population from going out of control. Like how the hawks and bobcats kill the squirrels but if we hunt all the hawks and bobcats then there will be nothing left to kill the squirrels resulting in overpopulation which can affect the forest environment.

How to help protect the environment 

Here are some easy things you can do in you can do in your everyday life to help the environment.

-Instead of throwing away your old toys or clothes you can donate them to a nearby donation company or thrift store.

– Use cold water when washing clothes and buy a filter to reduce the amount of micro plastics that come off of clothing and go into the ocean.

– Instead of throwing out plastic water bottles and containers, you can recycle them or buy reusable ones.

Thank you for reading. Have a great day!!