Week five Field trip next Week

Our first field trip to 2012 is happening next week on 7 and 8 March with a visit to the rocky shore. This is part of the first internal assessment for 2012 and you will be using the data you collect on the trip to complete the assessment in class over the following week. Make sure you are clear on what is expected and ask your teacher any questions you need to before it all to late.

Insect collection: our collection is going well but don't run out of steam I am sure there are more arthropods     to be found in the Hutt Valley. keep bringing them in!

The Khan Academy is a educational website that has instructional videos on a wide range of topics, particularly science and mathematics.
I'd like all my students to visit the site and create an account, register me as your coach and view some of the videos and exercises.




This is a link to the site




To add me as your coach see the following image:

The past week in Year 12 Biology

Ecology continues, we have been looking in some depth at the concept of an organisms niche. One of our main focusses for this part of our course it be able to explain and discuss why organisms live where they do and how they interact with the other organisms living in the same environment. One way ecologist's have  sought to interpret this is the concept of an organisms realised niche compared to it's potential niche. This link explains it quite simply.

We have also been back out with our quadrants to do some more sampling of plant communities this time on the front lawn. On this site there is an environmental gradient where the large trees shade the lawn close to the stone fence and as we move to the middle of the lawn it is in full sunlight. In the shady area we find a weed known as Hydrocotyle but this is much less common in the middle of the lawn.

Collected Data

Kite graph on Excel

Patterns in ecological communities

We are starting the year with ecology and already students have been seen with transect lines and quadrants sampling the distribution of different plants on the upper field close to the boundary with our neighbours.

Community survey

What percentage of the quadrat is grass?

One side of the fence is a playing field, regularly mown and occasionally sprayed to remove weeds. The other side of the fence was originally playing field as well but for the past three years has not been mown or sprayed.

Results:
Combined results
Detailed results

Kite diagrams: are a good method of representing data in a way that shows the pattern that organism(s) forms in the environment.

Data table and Kite diagrams