Mollusk Discovery: Bivalve

       My mollusk discovery was done on a bivalve. Bivalve simply means having two shells hinged together covering a soft body and gills. Common examples of bivalves are oysters, clams, scallops, and mussels. Bivalves have two siphons for bringing in water to flow over the gills. they are also filter feeders and use their mantle and gills to trap food with mucus. in terms of reprodution, bivalvesstart as meroplankton form shells and and sink to the bottom. Males release sperm and females release eggs. I chose to do a research on Pacific Razor Clams. Pacific razor clam scientific name is Silqua patula. The taxonomy of this clam is that it is in the animalia kingdom, mollusca phylum, bivalvia class, veneroida order, cultellidae family, silqua genus, and patula species.

to see a video about Pacific Razor Clams follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNuRXX3EAwk

Plankton Wars 2011

In plankton wars 2011, we designed a zooplankton. I was Brittany Pierce's partner. We named our plankton Captain Puffer Plankton. He was made out of sponges, clay, cupcake holders, buttons, and many more small objects.

PHOTO CREDITED TO BRITTANY PIERCE

 After we finished making Captain Plankton, we were the last group to put our plankton into the "ocean". We had faith that Puffer  would float because he was a very heavy plankton, but we were proven wrong and he stayed at the top. If we could have changed anything we would have added more weight to him. Of course the class got very ugly with us because we knew Puffer was going to be great but he was a fail. :(
PHOTO CREDITED TO BRITTANY PIERCE

Our Fantastic Group

(left to right) Tyler Johnson, Captain Puffer Plankton, and Brittany Pierce
PHOTO CREDITED TO KATHY RICHARDSON

Algae is in our food!?!

Our home work assignment was to go home and find things that had these three types of algae in them: alginates, carrageenans, beta carotene. I could only find two of the three in my house hold. I found alginates and Beta carotene. I found alginates in easy mac & cheese. I found beta carotene in cream of chicken soup and in  chicken noodle soup. I can make a very good inference that it is chicken. I could not find carrageenan in my house so I asked a friend, Hali Goad, and she had one. She found it in slim fast.

This has beta carotene in it.

This has beta carotene in it.

This has alginates in it.

This has carrageenans in it. Photo credited by Hali Goad.

Observations: Day 5 (BIRD WATCHING)

 When we went outside it was so nice. The weather was in the mid-70's. We went out bird watching. We are participating in the Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology Backyard birds count. We counted a total of 21 bird in LCHS's Backyard. These two pictures are birds that we found. The top one is called a Warbler. The bottom one is a picture of a Downey Woodpecker. My favorite is the Downey Woodpecker because it has a red moahawk and I have red hair so it is my kind of bird!!! :)

 As we ventured down a path we ran into a tree, that was covered in moss and fungi on the lower part of the trunk.

At the same site as the tree we, I, lifted a log and we found this little creature. Ashley Harris picked it up and named it Sam, as she says. It was a very slimey creature ant it was a very fast runner. Ashleys emotions were excited.

THIS IS THE BEST PIC OF ALL!!!
ALL PICTURES ARE CREDITED BY KATHY RICHARDSON!

Obsevations: Day 4

 When we went outside it was much warmer than  usual. You knew spring was on its way because of higher temperatures and the birds were chirping so they were coming back from migration. Today's task was to find and identify the different types of algae. 

 The cattails were continuing to disperse their seeds!

We worked ourselves over to a creek coming from the pond and I saw this jiggly-jelly like cluster. I thought it was frog or salamander eggs, but I poked it with a stick and it was just a rock. The way the water was hitting the rock made it look like it was a jelly substance.

Special Obsevations: Plankton Edition

 In this microscopic picture, we see a zooplankton that is the Micro size. This zooplankton is called a Holoplankton, which means permanent.  Holoplankton organisms remain plankton their entire life.

It  has short hairs to move around quickly.

THIS IS PLANT CELLS!!!

This long strand is a microscopic strand of phytoplankton. Its responsibility is to produce oxygen in to the air and take out the carbon dioxide. This is to small to see without a microscope. It is classified as a nano size.

 

Some of the southern Japanese islands are famous for their beautiful "star sand". These grains are the shells of microscopic, single-celled organisms called foraminiferans or forams (this image is of Baculosypsina sp.). Foraminifera commonly produce a calciferous test (skeleton) that is divided into chambers. Live forams have filopodia (thin cytoplasmic extensions) that are united in a complex fashion to produce reticulopodia. Some of the southern Japanese islands are famous for their beautiful "star sand". These grains are the shells of microscopic, single-celled organisms called foraminiferans or forams (this image is of Baculosypsina sp.). Foraminifera commonly produce a calciferous test (skeleton) that is divided into chambers. Live forams have filopodia (thin cytoplasmic extensions) that are united in a complex fashion to produce reticulopodia.

                                                                              -astrographics.com
             http://www.astrographics.com/GalleryPrintsIndex/GP2150.html
ALL PICTURES COURTESY OF MRS. K. RICHARDSON 

Observations: Day 3

 Site 1

When we first arrived at the sitem the sound I heard was engines running from the bus garage. I noticed a small creek where the rocks were dry and the water had stopped flowing over them. It was extremely cold as Mary, Brittany H., Matt, and I discussed what was going on in the environment around us.

 Site 2

As we walked along the shore line of the pond, I checked on the cattails progress. They were still dispersing their seeds for new ones to grow. The water was a little frozen over and it was so cold. BRRRRRRR!!!

 Site 3

As we moved along a trail, I saw these two trees. As you see in the background, the tree has brown leaves and they are falling off. The tree in the front is still green. I wonder why that is? Well there are different types of trees. the brown one is a seasonal tree, which is called deciduous trees. The green tree is an example of a year-round tree, which is called coniferous trees.

Site 4

As we walked back to the school we stopped at the front doors and got our last site for the day. At this site I noticed the sidewalk side and the grass and rocks have been eroded away because of the recent weather we have had. We finally went inside and watched The Blue Planet where half through class we had to take a Jump-Out/ Sleep Quiz because 2 people fell asleep. :(

Obsevations: Day 2

 Site 1

On this tree, there was a tree branch that was budding and it was showing life as we were there. The very end of the tip is where the bud is. The wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to hold on to the branch.

 Site 2

 On this bark of tree, on the ground, there is mold on the center portion of it and has started to take over on the leaves that have fallen too. Mold growing is a sign of life. We moved on to our next site with the sound of crunching leaves.

 Site 3

As we stumbled on over to the next site, we had to jump over a muddy creek and go over a bridge, and that is where I came upon this log. This is special log because it has many types of life, such as fungi and moss. It felt hard because it was so cold.

Site 4

We were returning back into the school when Mrs. Richardson said, "This is site 4." I had to think to myself, Where is life? What is it doing? I looked over my left shoulder and saw this gate with branches growing all over it. The gate was totally taken over in the branches. If you wanted to go on this little dock you would have to climb through all of the branches first, which I was not going to do! 

Observations: Day 1

                                                                            Site 1

      At this site, I heard different noises and felt the cool wind from the tree branches. As you can see in the above picture, the bridge has some ice on it and I can tell by the senses of the air, the rocks are frigid. You can't tell from the picture but the rocks had frost on them.

Site 2

         At this place I saw a frozen lake and cat tails depositing their seeds. The lake used to be just water, but because of the lower temperature that day, the lake was frozen over. It is now the season for cat tails to deposit their seeds in the air for new ones to grow new ones in the summer.

Site 3

       When we went to our third site look what we stumbled upon, a old car.  You can know that life once was here because a car cannot go any where with out a driver. This car ,you can see it better up close, has disintegrated and the car has developed rust.

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Site 4

         This was our final site and I really didn't see life here, but I did see this and thought this was kind of cool. This is a tree branch that had been connected  to the tree but it either had fallen off or was cut off. The other branch below it caught it and kept it hanging so i guess it just wants to "hang" out!