UPDATE: Plants Under a Microscope & Rapid Cycling Brassicas

Ive almost completed my portfolio for diversity of life 1. I have to do drawings of samples of angiosperms:

1. root
2. shoot
3. stem
4. leaf
5. epidermis
6. inflorescence

After this I did 3 sections of gymnosperms to compare and contrast. All of my samples are from pine. I did an ovule, stem and a leaf. (below: left to right, stem, ovule and leaf)

I had to look at 3 live cultures of algae: Volvox, Spyrogyra and Chlamydomonas and make detailed drawings of them. 

The Chlamydomonas moved about a lot and so had to put a Protozoa solution on it to slow the algae down so they were easier to see. 

(Below left to right: Volvow, Spirogyra & Chlamydomonas)

The third section is about rapid cycling brassicas. Each week they'd grow more and more and we had to draw detailed drawing of them at each stage every week. In the picture below you can see the development from when it had just started growing all the way to it producing fruit (seed pods). 

I have done most of the drawings, now I just have to do the write up which is all about the process of growing the Rapid Cycling Brassicas and describing them etc. I will show my drawings once I've finished my portfolio.

I have more pictures on my Flickr of you want to look at the rest! Plants Down a Microscope & Rapid Cycling Brassicas

Sully Shore Field Trip

We got a coach to Sully shore to do a species diversity survey along the shoreline of the different algae, seaweed, molluscs and barnacles etc.

Getting to our starting point was an adventure in itself, the seaweed was very slippery and the rocks with out seaweed were wet from rain and slippery all the same.

We had to measure the decline (/incline) of the slope down from the cliff to the sea. We did this by using a 30m tape measure as a transect and then measured every 2m with two striped poles and measuring the height difference between each. At every 2m a quadrat is placed and all the species present recorded as well as the percentage of each of the species within it.

Being Wales and winter it was raining on and off the entire time we were there with only one brief interval of sun. When it got just after four the sun went down and it got so bitterly cold that I could barely feel nor move my hands much. And I was pretty sure my wellies had started to leak...