Research Bio (EWS): Blog 2: September Nature Walk

Today our small bio class of eight went for a nature walk in the back woods of our campus on this rather hot and humid early September day. As we are beginning to dive deeper into the course and because the school routine is really starting to sink in, we are starting to go headfirst into biology. I have not taken a whole lot of bio yet in my education thus far, so when our teacher, Mr. Calos, starting bringing up terms like 'biome' and 'biotic factors' I had a split second of fear but also excitement for learning something new! On our nature walk today, we came up with a fairly good definition of essentially what a biome is. Biome: noun- an ecosystem that contains both biotic factors and abiotic factors. Until this afternoon, I had no idea what these three terms meant. However, it is rather quite simple. Biotic factors are things that live in an ecosystem, and abiotic factors are non-living things that affect the ecosystem and the biotic factors that live in them (the ecosystem). For example, temperature, precipitation, etc... are abiotic factors. After pairing up, we found biotic and abiotic factors in the woods to help establish what type of biome we live in (on campus). My partner, Theresa, and I found biotic factors such as oak trees, flies, wasps, pinecones, moss, pine trees, Queen Anne's lace, and golden rod. And we thought that the humidity and sunlight were potential abiotic factors. After gathering as a class and discussing what we saw, we determined that we live in a temperate deciduous forest biome. We talked about how we have four seasons and why the leaves come off the trees during the winter. I gathered that the photosynthesis is a factor and also if it snowed with all the leaves on the trees, it would weigh down the tree a lot.

Some other fun things we did on our nature walk included looking at live larva! Mr. Calos got hold of a Golden Rod Gall Larva, which I learned is a gall fly pupa. Therefore, the tiny looking maggot-like thing would someday turn into a fly! That is, if Mr. Calos didn't eat it! After seeing him give it a crunch or two, I thought to myself, "Why not do something out of the ordinary?" So I picked the little brown thing out of his hand, gathered some spit in my mouth, and swallowed it whole. Didn't really taste like much! We also looked carefully at milkweed, and I learned that it contains latex and that it is poisonous. Monarch butterflies are close with milkweed because they lay their eggs in it. Thus, Monarch butterflies are poisonous! That is important info that I should probably know! It's crazy to think that they fly all the way to Mexico and back. If only people could have wings to do that!

Overall, we had a very fun class today outside, learning more about our ecosystem. And there's so much more to discover!