From Nitrogen, To Nitrogen...

Feb. 6 – 10, 2012

Last week in our general science class  we’ve studied about the different cycles in ecology

such as the water cycle , the carbon , oxygen cycle . and the nitrogen cycle.   Our teacher 

told us to present about one of the different cycles and make a story about it . So she went

around and assigned what cycle  would belong to each group. We were hoping that we’d get the water cycle  since  it’s so easy and we’re already very familiar about that cycle since

we’ve been studying about it since elementary.  The cycle that got assigned to us was the

carbon , oxygen  cycle  . Even though we didn’t get the cycle that we want we still did our

best to make a presentation about the cycle that was given to us.  

During the day of the presentation when we presented ours I think it was ok but I also think that it was quite hilarious .  I enjoyed watching the other group’s presentation I think the stories that they’ve come up with were quite interesting. I also noticed that I understand the cycles better because there’s a story in it.  After all the presentations, our teacher  discussed about the different cycles that have been presented. 

The cycle that took my interest the most was the nitrogen cycle because it amazes me how the atmospheric nitrogen  from the atmosphere  gets into our system.  Our teacher told us that the cycle goes like this:  

From the atmosphere the atmospheric nitrogen  will go down to land either by lightning or rain, then once it’s on the ground nitrogen fixing bacteria which live in legumes will turn the nitrogen into a useful substance for plants such as nitrates and nitrites.  Then the plants will absorb the nitrites.  After the plants have absorbed the nitrites, humans will eat the plants and that’s how nitrogen will be included in our system.  

But since it’s a cycle we need to return the nitrogen into the atmosphere  so when we die decomposers will break us down into ammonia, this process is called as ammonification  then ammonium shall again turn into nitrites by the help of nitrifying bacteria, and this process is called nitrification, then once it returned into being a nitrite denitrifying bacteria  will turn the nitrites back into atmospheric nitrogen and the cycle goes on.

Jan. 23 – 27, 2012: “ Ours is a Finite Earth”

Last week was the start of the fourth quarter as the quarter starts we changed our sitting

arrangements in our general science class we also changed our groupings .Our topic in

general science this quarter is all about ecology and how to protect our environment.

We started our lesson by discussing about the 7 principles of ecology.  I think that studying

about the principle of ecology helps in understanding how things are connected to one

another in nature and how we can take care of our mother earth besides just like the 7^th

principle states “ ours is a finite earth” meaning our resources are not infinite and if we don’t

take care of ecosystem  will soon suffer from thirst and hunger. I also learned that the reason

why there are so many pests and rodents in the city is because people destroyed their

natural habitat and because of this unbalanced in nature there are so many mosquitos and

other pests that cause diseases I learned that people are the ones who are actually

responsible why there is dengue I remember the time when my mother told me that there

were no such disease called dengue before but because of the unbalanced caused by

humans there are now.  It’s also quite interesting to learn that the nature has the ability to

heal itself take the famous “ Smoky Mountain “ for example before it was full of garbage

and it was a dumpsite but when they prohibited the dumping of garbage there 20 years

after it turned into a natural mountain I believe that our polluted surroundings today could

could also be cleansed by nature if only people would stop polluting. Our teacher told us that

in some countries they launch their garbage into space because there is no space left to

throw the garbage hearing that It makes me think that we they must’ve have a lot of garbage

for them to throw some of their garbage into space and maybe we would need to throw our

garbage in space to if we don’t stop polluting . Studying ecology isn’t only about the study

of how an organism interacts with its environment it’s also about how we can protect our

environment  and I believe that studying ecology would make us care about mother earth.