Iain issued an online (and open) invitation to join him in a science fair, and as we are always eager to play with friends, we are happy to accept his invitation.
Our decision wasn't a very difficult one.
We've been meaning for a little while now to use our tank for a terrarium, and to study carnivorous plants. What fun!
While we don't have our carnivorous plants, yet, we do have quite the ecosystem out our front door, and we thought we'd get started with that.
Make ready.
Add some of our native soil - must keep the critters feeling comfortable.
A few surprises in just a couple of scoops of soil.Gotta have some grass in there.
Hmmm, what else?How about a dandelion plant...
More clay soil....,
Lots of luscious compost - feed the little friends properly...Add a few more interesting things...
a little tree (may as well put the damned things to good use) -namely, Box Elder
add a beautiful piece of driftwood for the creatures to climb on and hide in...
add a few rocks...scout for subjects...
baby centipedes
roly polies
earthworms
mature centipedes
add a few ants....
and there we have it!It is housed in our livingroom, on our table in front of our big picture window.
I have no idea what our observations shall be, or what will happen.
Will our plants live?
Will we ever see any of our bugs again?
Will we see tunnels from the worms on the sides and at the bottom of our aquarium?
Will the centipedes eat our other bugs? (We certainly hope not, I think we'll put a bit of raw meat in there to tempt them away from our other guests.)
I'm sure we'll learn a thing or two from our little backyard (front yard) ecosystem.
We shall post our conclusions on April 19. (And maybe a little snippet here or there in the meantime if things get really interesting.)
We haven't done a terrarium in a while. Good idea. I want to know if they survived.
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