Building the Biosphere

Biosphere coming together!

Willa's class is studying life systems. As part of the study, Willa was tasked with building a biosphere to study and document for the next few weeks. Via Pinterest, we found some great directions (HERE, then follow the links).

Our first task was collecting three empty 2 liter bottles. Willa and Cam canvassed the neighborhood - thanks to our neighbors Larry & Jeannette for the mini-ecosystem home!

I was deep into mulching and taking care of baby hostas, so this project was really a Jamey-Willa-Cam project. They made a trip to PetCo for guppies, snails and crickets. Willa harvested earth worms from my hosta-transplanting locations and Cam collected brown leaves and rocks.

The biosphere has been at school now for almost a week. Within the first day, two guppies died. But we put in four guppies with the assumption that there might be a tragic beginning to life. Willa reported on Friday that the snails were eating the fish carcasses and she'd found the leftover bones floating in the pond. Circle of life in action!

The class is also monitoring a small pool of tadpoles and their most exciting recent addition was crayfish. Willa is quite excited to be in the group hosting only one of two crayfish in the class! I've heard there are plans to try to get the crayfish to mate. I haven't asked her how they're going to go about this task yet.

Snails moving in.

Closing it the biosphere.

Testing Animation 3

Devolver...not sure if I like this one because of the lack of narration.

Testing Animation 2

Testing Xtranormal

Testing Animation

Test animation from GoAnimate


GoAnimate.com: Lisa Tests GoAnimate by lstrosch

Testing Timeline Tools post 4

TimeRime testing.

Testing Timeline Tools post 3

Using Timetoast

Testing Timeline Tools post 2

My testing with Capzles

Testing Timeline Tools

Life of Stros using Dipity

Life of Stros on Dipity.

My Life in Numbers

I'm working with the Advanced Journalism class on campus. We're exploring the creative and social nature of online content creation tools, and one of the tools we're using is Prezi. The assignment is to make a Prezi with the theme of "10 Things About Me". I'm impressed by the creativity the students have applied to their presentations.

Here's mine:

5472 = Lisa in Numbers on Prezi

Reflection

I've organized and am in the middle of a workshop about ePortfolios. Portfolios are all about reflection. We've been talking about how to make our students reflective...to think about what they're learning, why they're learning it and how it relates to the rest of the universe. Why don't I do that??!?!? Starting today, starting today.

Socrates said it best - "A life unexamined is not worth living."