Tide+Pool+Ecosystem+-+Humberto+Gonzales

__** Introduction **__ Hello, I am a sixth grade student currently attending the Amigos School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This WIKI is a project that we are doing for science class. Our grade investigated many ecosystems over the fall of 2010. My ecosystem is a New England tide pool. Our grade visited a tide pool on an island called Thompson’s Island in the Boston Harbor.



__** Abiotic **__ We got to Thompson’s Island on a boat called Outward Bound captained by Captain Weinstein. The island has a boathouse near the dock on the beach. To the left and the right, there is beach and rocks. In front of you there’s the boathouse and a trail through the woods. When we got off the boat, we walked down the beach to the tide pool; we split into the two homerooms groups and then into the smaller science investigation groups of about three people. We also had to test the water. Our results were that there was 4 PPM of dissolved oxygen, the water was 57.5ºF, the PH was 7.5 and the turbidity was 40 JTU. We also found out the air was 63ºF. Our challenge was to find as many organisms, biotic or abiotic, and place them into a bucket provided by our teacher.



**__ Biotic __** While at the tide pool, we found tons of organisms! We found five producers: algae, sea lettuce, Irish moss and rockweed. We found two primary consumers: periwinkle and slipper snails; these are both snail type creatures. We found six secondary consumers; barnacles, dog whelks, razor clams, blue mussels, sea urchins, and cormorants. A barnacle is a small hard creature. A dog whelk is a snail type creature. A razor clam is a long wide thin clam. A blue mussel is a mussel wth a blue color. A sea urchin is a round ball shaped object with spikes coming out of the sides. A cormorant is a bird that swoops down into the water to catch fish.



__** Energy Pyramid **__ All energy pyramids have a basic structure: the first section has the sun, which gives energy to the producers which is in the second section which gives energy to the primary consumers that gives energy to the secondary consumers that gives energy to the tertiary consumers that make up third, fourth and fifth sections. The final section is the decomposers that eat everything. You can also see my food web here and my energy pyramid here.



__** Conclusion **__

I have been doing research on a New England tide pool. On our field trip we had to take an amazing boat ride in the Boston Harbor to get to Thompson’s Island. The boat had an inside large enough to fit the whole Amigos sixth grade. There was also an upper deck that could fit half the grade. There's one thing the boat couldn't fit, all the memories we had on the island. While we were on the island, we had to find a rock that spoke to us for our chorus class. We scoured the entire island for interesting rocks. We also viewed a meadow ecosystem in the middle of the island. We did some of the same stuff there as we did on at the tide pools, collecting organisms and identifying them. Overall, Thompson’s Island was the best field trip our class has ever been on.

Check out my informational video here.