Lesson 7- Terrariums

Terrarium and Ecosystem Presentation Link

(7) A- Lesson Title: Terrariums and the Ecosystem

Description/ Theme:

Students will learn about how the ecosystem works, and how it relates the the terrariums in which they will create.  We will discuss the importance of an ecosystem and how it relates to our everyday life.  

Objectives:

-  Learn how to arrange plants within terrarium to work compositionally

-  achieve an understanding about how the ecosystem works, and why a terrarium can survive.

Procedure:

Every student in the class decides on a jar they want to use for their Terrariums.  They will fill the jar with rocks, charcoal, potting soil, moss, and a house plant.  They will focus on arranging the materials in an appropriate manner and that makes sense in a ecosystem.  They will also pay close attention to the way in which they arrange the plants within their terrarium, concentrating on composition.

Materials:

- Jar

- activated charcoal

- potting soil

- moss

- house plants ( Low-light terrariums: Ferns, mosses, baby's tears, fittonia peperomia, sanseveria, schefflera•High-light terrariums (open containers): Cacti, succulents including jade, aloe, borro's tail, earth stars, echeveria, haworthia, sedum)

- pebble-sized rocks

Links: http://www.bhg.com/gardening/houseplants/care/make-a-terrarium/#page=11

http://containergardening.about.com/od/floweringcontainergarden/ss/Terrariumht_6.htm

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-make-a-terrarium-139860

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem

Questions: 

What is an ecosystem?
What are some different ecosystems?
What is the process of an ecosystem?
What do you think happens when you take an animal/plant from one ecosystem and put it in another? 
What does sustainability mean?

Reflection: 

In this lesson we talked about ecosystems, and the students as usual surprised me with the knowledge that they already have about the environment.  After the presentation we worked on creating terrariums as either closed systems or open system terrariums.  The students really enjoyed this project, I believe because of its simplicity.  I think because creating the terrarium had basic steps to follow it was a bit easier to be creative.  They had to follow the steps, but they were allowed to paint their terrariums and decorate the insides with either moss or a plant and shells and small decorations.  Overall I think this lesson went really well, we got everything done on time and every student walked out of the class room with a sense of accomplishment.