To learn about the wetland ecosystem

Aim: To learn about the wetland ecosystem.

What is a Wetland?

Any land consisting of marshes or swamps and land that is saturated with water.                                                                

4 different kinds of wetlands

1. Marsh - wetland that is dominated by plants.
2. Swamp - an area of low-lying, uncultivated ground where water collects.
3. Bog - an area of wet muddy ground is very soft.
4. Mire / fen - a stretch of swampy or boggy ground.

Common wetland plants in NZ

Name	Image	Purpose
EG: Swamp weed		Food for fish and birds Home for fish and birds Cleans the water
Bullrush		Ducks make nest out of them and fish hide under them and use them for food.
Harakeke
Raupo		Ducks make nest out of them and fish hide under them and use them for food.
Toitoi

Common animals, insects, birds you may find in a NZ wetland.

Name	Image	Food
Duck		natural insects, mollusks, seeds, grains, and plants Cracked corn.
Frog		insects flies, mosquitoes, moths and dragonflies.
Butterfly		Butterflies can eat anything that can dissolve in water. They mostly feed on nectar from flowers but also eat tree sap, dung, pollen, or rotting fruit. They are attracted to sodium found in salt and sweat. This is why they sometimes even land on people in Butterfly Parks. Sodium as well as many other minerals is vital for the butterflies reproduction.
Grey Heron		Herons are predators; hunting for fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects and small mammals. They are also opportunistic which means they are very unlikely to pass up the chance of an easy meal. You may also be surprised at some of the other prey we have seen herons take here at Montrose.
Dragonfly		mosquitoes
Fish		There are several types of food for the aquarium fish - live food such as worms and shrimp, frozen food and pre-packaged foods. Prepackaged foods are produced in different forms - flakes, granules or pellets. Each type is designed to suit feeding habits of different kinds of fish.

Ecosystems.

Definition: An ecosystem is a large community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in a particular area.

Food chain:

Create your own food chain from the Kyle park wetlands below. Use the food chain above as an example.

Food  Webs:

Definition: A food web is similar to a food chain but larger. A food web uses arrows to show the energy relationships among organisms. Food webs show how plants and animals are connected in many ways.

Create your own food web of Kyle Park using:

Algae

Dragonfly

Tadpole

Frog

Fish

Grey Heron

stop motion

At art we have been making stop motion. Jackson dakin and I did the stop motion from week 1 to week 8. This is the stop motion its name is monkey break. First we did our scenes in order on our storyboard.  It was easy and fun. Then we did our script and character development. This was the hardest part because it took a really long time and was lots of writing and drawing. We spent time making our background out of cardboard and paper. We used a ruler to make lines so that it looked like a monkey cage. We painted our background and used pva glue to stick the paper onto the cardboard. We used clay to make the monkey, night guard, bananas, and the BFG.

We went onto a stop motion app on the ipad and we started photos of the characters moving. One character moves a tiny bit then we take a photo then move. It again and take another photo on and on and on. It took 405 photos to make 1 min 5 seconds of moving video. You can see the final product on this video I also added a photo of the story board to show all our hard work.


Stop motion is hard because your fingers get really sore after it from shaping the clay its hard because you need to make sure you don't move the characters to much the fun stuff was doing the voice over, molding the clay, and it was quite funny when Jackson did the monkeys voice really loud.

We are going to make another one soon over two or three weeks if you want to see another one wait a few weeks.

the 7 types of crystal

The 7 types of crystals

Type	Number of sides	2 examples	Image
Triclinic Definition:	10	salt
Monoclinic Definition:	10	azurite
Orthombic Definition:	6	tanzanite
Trigonal Definition:	7	amzonite
Hexagonal Definition:	8	emerald
Cubic Definition:	6	gold
Tetragonal Definition:	12	wulfenite

skittles power

Aim; to separate the colours out of skittles.
Materials; skittles, petrie dish, water.
Process:1 put the skittles in the petrie dish evenly in a star shape
             2 then put water in the dish
             3 the colour came out of the skittles and the  colours didn't join together
             4 we got to eat them all.
Conclusion; so even without the colour they still tasted the same.

crazy crystals

Aim: To learn about a saturated solution and how to make crystals.

borax crystals
materials
1.2/3 of warm water
2.1 tablespoon
3. 3 tablespoon of borax
4. 3 pipe cleaner.
5. 1 peg

septs...

sept 1: pour 2/3 of warm water into the cup.
sept 2: put 4 tablespoon of borax and until it dissolve.
sept 3: make the 3 pipe cleaners into a star
sept 4: use the peg and put the the into the water.

sugar crystals
materials
1.2/3 of warm water in the cup
2.1 peg
3. 2 pipe cleaner
4. 8 tablespoon of sugar

septs...

sept 1: pour 2/3 of warm water into the cup.
sept 2: put 8 tablespoon of sugar and until it dissolve.
sept 3: use the peg and put the the into the water.

salt crystals
materials
1.2/3 of warm water in the cup
2.1 peg
3. 2 pipe cleaner
4. 3 tablespoon of salt

septs...

step 1: pour 2/3 of warm water into the cup.
sept 2: put 3 tablespoon of salt and stoer the salt until it dissolve.
sept 3: use the peg and put the the into the water.

crystal shapes
  isometric,tetragonal,orthorhombic,monoclinic,triclinic,hexagonal,trigonal.

Crystal Type	Shape (Describe the shape)	Size (of individual crystals)	Hardness (Crumbly to Rock Hard)
Borax	sater	big	hard
Sugar	circle	smell	hard
Salt	rectangle	smell	hard

The amazing wonders of the compost pile

All of the year 7 and 8  find A phone and $5 and the worst bit was we find cigarette and alcohol bottles this is what happen when you drop rubbish.

ink spearmint

 To separate colours by using the process of chromatography. 

Definition: A technique for separating the different parts of a mixture.


The ink followed the water up the filter paper. We drew a line at the top of the paper and we watched the colour follow the filter paper the first colour to reach the top was the black, the second colour was green and last was red.
But we found out that black colour is made up of blue and red
                                    green was made up of blue and yellow
                                    red was made up of orange and yellow

We also use vivid pen no colours came out at all. They just stayed the same dots that we started with.