Botany 111 Term Project Day 1: Preparing an Aquatic Environment

As we move into the second half of the semester we began with an introduction to and brief history of the concept of taxonomy. In setting up our microaquarium term project, we gained hands-on experience with creating a classification system to differentiate each student's individual microaquarium. Using a three level, color coded system we classified first by lab section, then table, then seat. Following this, Dr McFarland gave us a virtual tour of 13 sites around Knox County where he collected water and mud samples, explaining as well the source of the water at each site and also predominant plants specific to some sites. Dr McFarland explained his method of collecting. These are the three steps: first he gathered mud, second water from a mid-level area between the mud and water's surface and third he collected water from the surface. This he told was done because, as he said, there are different organisms living at different levels of the water and also so that we could harvest in the same fashion in the lab and be able to replicate these strata in our microaquariums. I chose to use water from Dean's Woods - SpringCreek (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/). So, I extracted water from the bottom of the dish so that a mud layer was created on the bottom of my aquarium, using a tool that looked like a miniature turkey baister. I then extracted water from the mid section, then squeezed that into my microaquarium, and repeated with water from the surface. After that, using tweezers i removed a small piece of  Amblestegium sp. and  Utricularia gibba L (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/) and put them into my microaquarium. Next I laid the the microaquarium gently on the microscope stage. I used only the 4x lens to observe, because I sometimes struggle to focus while looking into the microscope without seeing double and feeling slightly nauseaus. I observed both of the plant specimens however, I did not make note of which was which, so next time I'm going to make that distinction. Aside from the plants added the only other organism I observed looked like a small, round and iridescent moving around the water in a circular/spiral motion. I realize now that next time I look through the microscope I'm going to take more notes and inquire about this double vision problem.

References



Botany1112011.blogger.com [Internet]. An inquiry into the dynamic microorganisms in our environment Botany 111 2011; c2011 [cited 2011 October 12]. Available from: http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/