Introduction

In this project, we had to create an eco-column, which is a long tube that connects three different environments to each other. From top to bottom: Terrestrial Layer, Decomposition Layer, and Aquatic Layer.

Terrestrial Layer
This layer contains a few different things.
 * Grass
 * Soil

Decomposition Layer
This layer gets all of the nutrients and detritus from the terrestrial layer.
 * Soil
 * Detritus - The detritus is made up of decomposing leaves, grasses and other materials.
 * Red Worms

Aquatic Layer
This layer gets all of the nutrients washed in after the red worms decompose the detritus from the Terrestrial Layer. That is the basic structure of each layer, but each layer will have its own specific article.
 * Rocks
 * Sand
 * Soil
 * Elodea
 * Aquatic Plants
 * Water Shrimp
 * Baby Snails?
 * Large Mayfly (M.I.A) Now confirmed (K.I.A)DATE UNKNOWN
 * Unidentified aquatic insects

I thought that the eco-column would be dead by the end of the year, but it actually did pretty well.

Turbidity is important to measure because it measures how many dissolved solids are in the water and if the level is too high or too low, it's bad for the living things in the aquatic ecosystem. The things that can affect this are temperature, aquatic life, and also kids who play with the eco-columns and stir up the water.

Temperature is important because the water needs to be in a certain range for the elodea and other aquatic life to survive. The things that can impact the temperature is sunlight, time of year, air temperature in the class and if we add different temperature water to the layer.

pH is important because the pH should be at neutral (7) for things to survive. Once the pH starts dropping or rising is when things start to die. Things that can impact this is aquatic life, air pollution and water pollution from the faucet, and the soil in the aquatic layer.

Nitrates is important because without nitrates, our plant won't grow at all. A balanced nitrate level means balanced and healthy plant growth. This could be bad and cause plants to overgrow and cause eutrophication though. That's why we need to watch the nitrate level and take tests on it. The biggest thing that impacts this is the nutrients coming from the top two layers.

Dissolved Oxygen is important because nothing can survive if the levels are too hige or too low. All life in our eco-column would be dead if the DO levels fluxuated from really high to really low. Things that effect this are temperature, turbidity, sunlight, etc.