Thursday, January 22, 2009

Natural Resources?

What are natural resources? They are the things from the earth that are always going to be there for us, if we treat them properly.

In class we've been learning about natural resources. High on the list is Soil, one of the most needed resources. It grows our food and helps plants that make cotton and milk. Milk also is from the soil because the cow eats the grass that comes from the soil.

A few days ago we tested to see how well different soils respond to water. Here are the types of soil. We will tell the things we noticed about the soils and you can make a guess at which one held the most water.

Soil A: not completely decomposed, a lot of organic matter, soft and fluffy, it can't be rolled into a snake

Soil B: sandy, gravely, not much organic matter, like beach sand

Soil C: like play dough, lots of clay and silt (small particles), can be rolled into snake

No surprise, Soil C won. It held 18 teaspoons of water. Most of the water puddled on top. This happened because there was so much clay in the soil. Soil A leaked on the 4th teaspoon. We think it was because it had too much organic matter and no clay so it dripped. Though if you wanted to plant a garden Soil A would be the best idea. B leaked on the 15th tea spoon. The sand particles in it left too much space for the water to go through.

Soil is something we need. From clothes to food.
I.F.M and C.R.H