8/23/2023

This is my first year in W.I.S.R.D. and I think I should list the things I want to do over the year. I want to start a bug collection for studying, I would also like to help work on the autonomous tanks, I would like to examine some mushrooms and find out how they help sustain other plants around them in their symbiotic relationship(Maybe grow some plants with mushrooms and some without) I also want to study some more marine biology and study more birds and go bird watching while keeping count of the different types of birds I see.

8/24/2023

Today I decided that I wanted to work with mushrooms. I want to get 3 or 4 potato plants and different types of mushrooms for each and see what happens if they all are in the same environment and water in the same amount. I will still bird-watch and work on my bug collection.

8/29/2023

Today I dissected 3 owl pellets. I found lots of mice bones and a massive skull I have not identified the skull yet but I let them soak in water to get all of the hair out. I will post an update when I have identified them.

8/31/2023

Today I cleaned off the bones and found owl pellets. I am leaving them overnight to soak before we organize them. I started a new project with Brian that tested how light and humidity affect mushrooms. The things we are testing are one mushroom that will be in more direct sunlight another that is in less direct sunlight one is in a completely dark box with no light and the other one is in a mushroom growing humidity chamber that is optimal for growth. They are all getting the same amount of water, I am doing these tests to get good at growing mushrooms which leads to the next part of this project which is going to be growing microgreens and parrying them with different types of mushrooms to see how it affects the plant’s growth. I will go into more detail about what this other project entails when it is time to grow everything.

8/31/2023

Today I cleaned off the bones and found owl pellets. I am leaving them overnight to soak before we organize them. I started a new project with Brian that tested how light and humidity affect mushrooms. The things we are testing are one mushroom that will be in more direct sunlight another that is in less direct sunlight one is in a completely dark box with no light and the other one is in a mushroom growing humidity chamber that is optimal for growth. They are all getting the same amount of water, I am doing these tests to get good at growing mushrooms which leads to the next part of this project which is going to be growing microgreens and parrying them with different types of mushrooms to see how it affects the plants growth. I will go into more detail about what this other project entails when it is time to grow everything.

9/5/2023

Today Brian and I started by checking on the mushrooms. The mushroom block inside of the growing chamber grew substantially while the other ones stayed pretty small. Then we went on to set up the brine shrimp tank. It did not come with the heater or the airline so we had to buy them ourselves. We already had an airline so we installed that now all we need is a heater so that our brine shrimp will hatch. I am setting up the brine shrimp hatchery for the fish so that they can have food when they come. My next project will be growing microgreens.

9/7/2023

This class we got the heater for the brine shrimp tank. We set it to 85F (which is what brine shrimp hatch at ) and dumped in two scoops of brine shrimp eggs. Our mushrooms also grew a lot more. The one in the mushroom growing tank might be a little starved of oxygen. I wonder if that’s why it is only growing one way. The one with no light has barely grown at all and the one in direct sunlight has not grown either. But the ones in the shade are. When my micro greens and soil come I will cut off a piece of the mushrooms and put it in the dirt and see what happens. I hope my fish come soon.

9/14/2023

Today Brian found almost all of our brine shrimp dead. We think they died because there were too many of them and there was a bunch of junk at the bottom of the tank. We restarted the population with less shrimp and more water. Tomorrow the new fish come so the brine shrimp need to be ready to feed them. Brian and I have started a new project because we finished putting the mouse skeleton back together. So we started a new project where we will see how global warming affects mole crabs. We will do this by making small tanks and making each of them different temperatures to see if it affects how the sand crabs move around and how deep they tunnel. It won’t be very hot so they won’t get hurt but it will be enough to cause some amount of change.

10/2/2023

For the past two weeks, we have focused on our plants and seeing how much shrooms affect them. I was sick for a week so I missed a bunch of the plants growing. Our brine shrimp all died again. I think that it is because of the fish food going bad at the bottom. We plan on getting some touch tank animals and restarting the brine shrimp.

10/3/2023

Brian and I today reset the brine shrimp population we checked up on our plants and I took time laps of the tanks. I fed the fish and we watched the snail move across the whole saltwater tank! We are researching more about the tough tank we have already found one of the animals for it.

10/23/2023

Over the past 3 weeks, we have done a few things. We have set up a mushroom grow tank and a tomato plant that we will add to once they are ready to be potted. We got a bunch of new fish and found out what type of food brine shrimps need to eat.

10/31/2023

Today I noticed baby fish in the back of the freshwater tank. I can not tell yet who their parents are but I have a guess. I think it’s the two albino fish because the babies have similar coloring.

11/6/2023

We are kind of finishing off our two first projects because the fish tank is self-sustaining and the plants only require water once a day. So we are starting our new project which is taxidermy. We are going to start practicing on some animal puppets and then we will go on to do real animal fur that is humanely sourced. We have ordered the supplies to perform the taxidermy now all we have to do is practice before we try it on real pelts. The one without the mushroom might have died today.

11/6/2023

We are kind of finishing off our two first projects because the fish tank is self-sustaining and the plants only require water once a day. So we are starting our new project which is taxidermy. We are going to start practicing on some animal puppets and then we will go on to do real animal fur that is humanely sourced. We have ordered the supplies to perform the taxidermy now all we have to do is practice before we try it on real pelts. The one without the mushroom might have died today.

Owl pellets:

We took apart owl pellets and saw if we could construct a whole rat skeleton. We found a lot of the bigger bones but lost a few to the sink drain. If we ever do it again we should put a strainer to catch the bigger bones. We used super glue to glue down the bones. Next time we should use hot glue because the fumes from the super glue made our clear container not clear. Over this project turned out pretty good. I we ever do it again I want to make it more accurate.

Mushrooms and plants:

Our goal for this project was to see if mushrooms had an effect on plants and how fast they would grow. They all had the same amount of sun and water. We saw that the one that had the mushroom in it grew much bigger and faster than the one without it. We still can’t be sure that that’s why they grew so much faster but I am pretty confident that is why. When we took out the mushroom the one that had one in it stopped growing and started dying a bit. We will continue to water them but that only takes 5 minutes which is why we need a new project to spend our time on. We also had a mushroom that was eating sponges. We tried to see if we could get it to eat plastic but it died before we could start experimenting see Figure 5. We might take this project up again later in the year to make sure that our mushrooms affect how the plants grow. Next time we need to get a better watering method.

Mushrooms and plants:

Our goal for this project was to see if mushrooms had an effect on plants and how fast they would grow. They all had the same amount of sun and water. We saw that the one that had the mushroom in it grew much bigger and faster than the one without it. We still can’t be sure that that’s why they grew so much faster but I am pretty confident that is why. When we took out the mushroom the one that had one in it stopped growing and started dying a bit. We will continue to water them but that only takes 5 minutes which is why we need a new project to spend our time on. We also had a mushroom that was eating sponges. We tried to see if we could get it to eat plastic but it died before we could start experimenting see Figure 5. We might take this project up again later in the year to make sure that our mushrooms affect how the plants grow. Next time we need to get a better watering method.

Mushrooms and plants:

Our goal for this project was to see if mushrooms had an effect on plants and how fast they would grow. They all had the same amount of sun and water. We saw that the one that had the mushroom in it grew much bigger and faster than the one without it. We still can’t be sure that that’s why they grew so much faster but I am pretty confident that is why. When we took out the mushroom the one that had one in it stopped growing and started dying a bit. We will continue to water them but that only takes 5 minutes which is why we need a new project to spend our time on. We also had a mushroom that was eating sponges. We tried to see if we could get it to eat plastic but it died before we could start experimenting see Figure 5. We might take this project up again later in the year to make sure that our mushrooms affect how the plants grow. Next time we need to get a better watering method.

12/12/2023

For the past month, we have been making our poster and watering the microgreens. We did come up with some new experiments to do next see on our poster. Next semester we are going to do a lot of experiments about mushrooms.

12/14/2023

Today I worked on setting up a webcam for the freshwater fish tank. I am going to use a heat-shifting plastic to make the webcam water proof. I took some mushroom water to do experiments on.

1/2/2024

To start our first class of the new year we decided to start up our new mushroom and brine shrimp. We cut the new mushrooms into 8 different size pieces each. We put them in water to let them grow overnight and collected the mushroom spoor juice from the pink oyster mushroom. Our next steps will be to plant all of the plants and put mushrooms in 6 of the 8 planters we will be making. also test how the mushroom spore water affects asparagus ferns and philodendrons. The mushroom asparagus gets watered with 35ml of mushroom water and the other one gets 35ml of water. The philodendron gets 55ml of mushroom water and the other gets 55ml of water.

1/3/2024

Today we decided to put the soil in. We used 1500ml of Mother Earth and 1200ml of potting soil

1/25/2024

In the past weeks, we have continued our mushroom studies and worked on our inquiry pitch. We restarted the mushroom grow chamber with pink oyster mushrooms and pearl oyster mushrooms. The pink oyster mushrooms have not grown at all over the 3 weeks we have been doing it. We decided that the mushroom water was hurting the plants more than helping so we decided to stop that. After the rain a few days ago one of the mushrooms has started to grow through the burlap and they have mycelium in the soil. See the picture below to see our progress.

1/29/2023

The tomato plant has developed some fungi on its leaves. I think this happens because after the rain the leaves were wet so fungi from the air developed on them. It is supposed to rain again this week so we will see what happens with the fungi.

2/6/2024

Today our new project is making a completely self-sustaining ecosystem. We will use some sort of glass container. We will find the right type of plants and bugs. We will also use mushrooms to help the animals grow and the plants too.

2/21/2024

I have decided to get back into taxidermy. I have done this because I met with Tim Bovard the leader of taxidermy at the Natural History Museum. He gave me the tips and resources to get back into it and learn how. I am going in sometime in July to meet with him and craft a squirrel taxidermy. Right now I am working on the skeletal structures of sparrows.

3/5/2024

The new projects that we want to do after this are…

leafcutter ant colony (With a viewing area and U.V lights to shine on fungi)

Mushroom maze

Self-sustaining eco system.

3/12/2024

In our newest experiment, we are measuring if and how dirty water affects plant growth. we have 3 different species of plants one in dirty water and one in clean. In 2 months this experiment will end.

Day 1:

With dirty water:

Plant type 1 (Asparagus Fern): 100.6mm

Plant type 2 (Spider Plant): 83.5

Plant type 3 (Tradescantia Spathacea): 141.1mm

Clean water:

Plant type 1 (Asparagus Fern): 98.9mm

Plant type 2 (Spider Plant): 21.1mm

Plant type 3 (Tradescantia Spathacea): 190.4mm

3/13/2024

Day 2:

With dirty water:

Plant type 1 (Asparagus Fern): 106.7mm

Plant type 2 (Spider Plant): 100.6mm

Plant type 3 (Tradescantia Spathacea): 154.1mm

Clean water:

Plant type 1 (Asparagus Fern): 98.9mm

Plant type 2 (Spider Plant): 25.5mm

Plant type 3 (Tradescantia Spathacea): 174.5mm (Got smaller because I broke the plant)

5/9/2024

Today we decided to start the self-sustaining terrarium. In this terrarium, there will be pill bugs, moss(for food), plants for oxygen, and light to evaporate the water. the next step is getting the plants and figuring out how much water and what type of light we need to evaporate the water

5/13/2024

Today I added a fern to the self-sustaining Eco-system. I also want to add a light system into the tank so that the water evaporates faster. A seal will also be added next year so that when we add the bugs inside the tank.

5/21/2024

Today I decided to redo the tank. To start I removed all of the soil that we had added. Then I added ceramic beads to soak up the water. Mesh was then added on top of that to make sure that the substrair did not get drained into the drainage layer. I did a bunch of reaserch on youtube to figure this out.

8/22/2024: Today was the second day of class, and I had a lot of housekeeping to do. I have changed the water in the small black fish to be our shrimp tank. I am also restoring the terrarium. I added a bunch more topsoil and researched what plants I wanted to purchase for it. I have decided that cushion moss, ferns, springtails, and pillbugs will populate the terrarium. Additionally, I want to make a small spring tale breeding tank. Link to ferns https://www.gardenia.net/plant/adiantum-raddianum-delta-maidenhair-fern

8.26.24

Today Joe joined the wild lab. We are working on making an Amphopod container to hold the adults safely while still letting the younger ones get eaten. I also transferred one shrimp to the blank tank to see if the water was safe for the rest of the shrimp. I added a heater set to 77 degrees. Next class I want to start buying some amphipods to test our cage. I also would like to buy some boiled driftwood to level out PH.

9/3/2024

Today our moss came so we added the moss to the terrarium and the "ant tank". We have decided that the ant tank will become a mushroom study to see how mycelium affects plants. We are researching to see what fish eats duckweed because we are having issues with it. We found that besides goldfish silver dollars and Buenos tardes. In the next class, we want to make the mister for the mushroom tank.

9/4/2024

Today Joe and I decided to start setting up the lighting for the terrarium. Next, we tried to move more tanks to make space but it ended up spilling so we spent a lot of class cleaning it up. We still need our springtails to arrive. I was thinking that we could as a side project produce and sell some duckweed through WIE. We have so much and could easily grow it.

9/9/2024

Today we had a lab meeting where we talked about what we want to get done this week. I want to print some skulls, write an inquiry pitch, stabilize all the tanks, and start research on the mushroom maze.

9/10/2024

Today I made a wild ideas document to document our ideas and outlines. I added the shrimp cage but have yet to see a shrimp go in it... I found a massive black and gold-rimmed shrimp that I think is one of King Shrimp's offspring. I want to do a genetics study because of our shrimp.

9/13/2024

Today during our CI period Brian and I went in to check on the fish. They were doing well so we added about 6 shrimp and the shrimp house. We also added a bunch of plants and the pea puffers. The temperature is stable at 77 which is what every tank is set to.

9/16/2024

Today Joe and I did a lot of troubleshooting. We had to clean the small black filters because they were getting clogged by plants. Every week we are going to clean them. Next, we are researching how we could tag the shrimp to see the generations and how they mutate. So far we have decided that we need to cut up tiny pieces of colored plastic and tie them to the back of the shrimp tail. We don't want it to hurt the shrimp though so we are definitely to have to research how to do it safely and successfully.

9/16/2024

Today Joe and I cleaned out the filters, and organized our things. We decided to put a double filter on the small shrimp tank.

9/19/2024

Today Joe and I worked on our tanks. I collected more specimens to preserve for later research (used some of it today to find a way to tag shrimp). Our dual-wield filters are working great in the new tank. For the shrimp, we are thinking of using braces and rubber bands.

9/23/2024

Today Joe and I cleaned tanks, watered all the plants, did a water test, and cleaned up our links and Google Docs. I want to finish up the plants and start growing the mushrooms. I also would like to start tagging the shrimp (using tiny rubber bands). We are going to sedate them in clove oil and then tag their tails.

9/24/2024

Today we took care of the tanks. In addition, we discovered that the yellow mushrooms in our tank are called Leucocoprinus Birnbaum fungi.

9/30/2024

Today Joe and I worked on our new tank (see in wisrd ideas). The study will show what environment different animals prefer. Joe made a lid and a plug for the hole in the back of the tank so the substrate would not spill over. We fed everything and worked on our Dark Matter Day project (drawing skulls and matching them to real animals).

10/14/2024

Over the past weeks, we have not done too much. We have been working on our inquiries a lot which takes up most of our time. We have been keeping all of the animals alive (besides the loach that killed himself). We worked on our dark-matter day posters and games. After dark matter day and the inquirer, we will resume our work.

9/15/2024

Today was a big clean-up day where we organized cables, organized our desks, and threw away extra slides. We have decided that tomorrow is the day we are going to scrap the terrarium and finally make the fully self-sustaining tank. We need to find a filter for it that doesn’t need to be replaced and then we are good. I am very excited for this tank to thrive.

10/29/2024

Over the past month, we have been doing a lot of exciting things. We worked on dark matter day and finished our inquiries. We just started to get back into our research with the self-sustaining tank. We found the filter we will need. We have been working on the shopping list for everything we need. Our next step is setting up the tank and testing it rigorously over a few weeks to ensure it will be safe for animals. Outside of school, I would like to start volunteering with the taxidermy expert at the NHM (Natural History Museum) and I want to volunteer 6 hours at the aquarium (Heal the Bay).

11/4/2024

Today Joe and I researched and put more things for our big fresh water tank on our shopping list. We are also wondering what would eat the purple algae that is infecting the saltwater tank. Our next steps are to set up and rigorously test our new tank to make sure it’s safe as well as finish the planters and start growing more mushrooms.

11/7/2024

Over the past 2 days Joe, Ronan, and I have been setting up the new tank. We have all of the rocks plants filter set up, but we still need to get the lighting and heat we ordered. We will ensure it is safe for the animals before we put them in.

11/11/2024

Today we set up the new tank with a bunch of plants. The pothos in the filters seem to be doing very well. We did a water test on the tank, and it has perfect quality, proving that our filter is working so far. The only thing we need to get is our heater and light which are coming tomorrow.

12/2/2024

Today was the first day back since Thanksgiving break. Nothing died in any of the tanks so I would consider it a win. We revised our shopping list and decided to take many things that weren’t necessary. I found owl pellets over break and decided to take them into wisrd to see If we could fully reconstruct a mouse body. Or see if we could even identify the bones.

12/11/2024

For the last 8 days, our lab worked on our scientific poster for poster session. Today we finished our poster so we made lids for the new tank as well as our grow tank for scud. We have 6 tiny neon tetras that seem to be working in the tank. Our next step is to turn down the filter and then stain the lid we made and see if our idea works.

1/13/2024

Today Joe and I had a lot of cleanup to do. We made a plan for the next weeks that consists of cleaning for the first two days and then working on mushrooms and keeping the tanks alive. Tomorrow we need to water test the tanks. We are talking to Ronan and Brian about our plan for this semester but one thing is for sure… we are going to make and publish a paper.

12/14/2024

Today was another day of cleaning and maintenance. The water in three of the tanks was bad so a water change was utilized to keep the pH and gh at bay. The plan for the next class is to start research on the mushroom studies as well as find the grow chamber.

1/16/2025

Research on slime mold and how to take care of it was done. Videos of the experiment on the Tokoyes subway system were viewed to help inspire the group. It was found that the pea puffer fish as well as corry catfish were eating shrimp sheds as their source of protein making it completely renewable because the shrimp eat the poop and plants while the fish eat sheds, scud, and some of the plants.

1/21/2025

Today was the last day of spring cleaning the wild lab group will be doing this semester. They organized all of the tanks and are now preparing to start their mushroom studies.

1/22/2025

Water tests were performed on tanks to see how well the crushed-up shells did to help the self-sustaining tank. They helped with the gh but corral will have to be used to raise ph.

1/28/2025

Today one of the tube worms died. I decided to carefully take it out and dissect it. I found a whole little ecosystem inside of it full of tiny biodegrades. This shows how good the ecosystem in the saltwater tank is. We also were interviewed for the wisrd Instagram which is pretty cool.

2/5/2025

Today, I updated the journal as well, I also stained some java moss (found in fw) and made one more set of stains. An urchin died today, so I preserved it. I am starting my research on how we will use the slime mold and how to keep it alive.

2/6/2025

Today, I had to leave early for a doctor's appointment, but I set up the new brine tower and examined/cleaned the tanks before I left.

2/10/2025

Tanks were tested today and it was found that. The amphipod tank had a high Ph. Most of the amphipods had died because of this but the group used a siv screen to capture them. They were then put into the big freshwater tank. One of the fish in the tank has a spinal issue going on but it is being monitored.

2/11/2025

Today, we dealt with the brine shrimp. We found that Ronan had set them up wrong, so we reset them, and hopefully, they will now hatch. We cleaned up the table, and I set up the mushroom grower and the plate that will be used for mapping the L.A. metro study.

2/19/2025

A water change was made on the t freshwater biocube tank today. A plant had died causing an oily film to appear on the top of the tank. A new terrarium was made to be sealed up. A drainage layer made of clay is at the bottom and a layer of coconut husk is put on top. Moss was used to provide oxygen as well as some pothos plants that have been lying around. Springtails were put in and now all it needs is some isopods to eat dead plant matter.

2/24/2025

Today, the feedback for the labs was released. After receiving feedback, work was done on the lab research question. The W.I.L.D. lab website is being updated to clarify the research questions and lab branches.

2/25/2025

Today, the website was worked on. Additionally, the preserved loach was examined under a microscope to compare it to the loach right after death and three months after.

3/3/2025

The filter on the self-sustaining tank broke today. Joe fixed it shortly after. It turns out that the axle inside the motor is free-floating, so it became dislodged. A film was found in the big fresh water tank so a piece of paper towel was used to absorb the oil (it worked surprisingly well).

3/4/2025

The lab was extremely efficient today. The big FW tank was cleaned (lots of moss and hornwort removed). The group tried. To visited the advanced bio teacher (to get slime mold for the maze) but they were not in their class. A new lid that has been worked on is almost done, which is great because the water in the FW self-sustaining tank evaporates much slower.

3/5/2025

Today, water tests were conducted on each tank. The saltwater tank's GH and pH levels were found to be too high. The heights of plants in Brian's planters were measured, revealing that the ones with mushrooms tended to be bigger and healthier. Due to a shot, I will not be in class tomorrow, which has postponed the maze idea. Hopefully, the test will be conducted next week.

3/10/2025

Today Joe and I started our slime mold research paper. We wrote the template for it out and sighted some sources. We did a bit more research but we are now ready to get the slime mold and start the experiment.

3/11/2025

Today we went into the advanced bio class to ask for some slime mold. Ann Marie told us that there was a slime mold nut. It had all been contaminated so Joe and I ordered some more. TIll. When it comes, we will be preparing it and making sure the tanks stay healthy.

3/17/2025

This week, the lab decided to take over hydroponics next year. they asked Megan for approval and she seemed on board with it. Hydroponic Food Production by Howard M. Reh was read to give a further understanding of the system. Further research into the small submersible was done. The lab is going to make a prototype shell to see how it floats and the spacing.