orcas4ever

=**__River Eco-System __** =

=
Hi, I’m orcas4ever, and I go to the Amigos School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I hope this will teach you more about the eco-system right near us, the Charles River. This is one of the many places my class visited to test water samples and learn about eco-systems in Science class. We had lots of fun, and I hope to share that with you now. ======

=
 ======

=
The Charles River separates two cities: Cambridge and Boston. One cool afternoon, we walked from our school to the Cambridge side of the river. The water was cloudy and dark, lapping the shore. Our fingers became numb with cold in the crisp, fresh air. Sunlight was scarce, hardly ever peeking from behind the clouds. We measured turbidity (the cloudiness of the water-70 jtu), pH (if the water was acidic or alkaline- pH 7), and air and water temperatures (air-8° to 11° C, water-14°C) using a thermometer and tools from a World Water Monitoring Day kit. Wow**!** ======

=
The Charles River may seem like a dead, urban place, but you would never believe how much life there can still be! I’ll start with the most important of all: The producers. These organisms make their own food, and provide it for others. We saw fuzzy moss, tall oak trees, and delicate blue lettuce. Next in the food chain come the consumers. There are so many, they have to be separated into three groups: herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. The herbivores are organisms that eat only producers, like ants, squirrels, ducks, and zooplankton. Carnivores are just the opposite. They only eat other animals. The river might have cormorants, bigger fish, and even zooplankton. Right in between are omnivores: organisms that eat plants and animals, like us! Birds, fish, voles, and zooplankton (!) are examples. Last but NOT least come decomposers, who are very special kinds of consumers. They will eat anything dead. Then they will break it down and return it to the soil, helping new plants grow. We found signs of bacteria, bracket fungus, and worms in the river eco-system. Is that a lot of life or WHAT? You can see all of this on my Energy Pyramid or my Concept Web. ======

=== ===

We were surprised by what we discovered about the Charles River. It’s never just us there; life is everywhere you look, even in the air! I learned how to measure the water in lots of different ways: the turbidity, the pH, the dissolved oxygen, and the temperature. When a nervous little creature sped past my shoe, I learned it wasn’t a mouse, but a vole. I now know that bendy, swirly fungus is called bracket fungus. Above all, these eco-system field trips have taught me what the different consumers, decomposers, producers, and scavengers are, what the abiotic factors are, and how to record all that data in an organized way. They’ve even changed the way I look at things. I don’t just see them and look away anymore. I wonder what might be hiding just out of view…