3-04 ENGAGE: Intro to Cycles in Ecosystems

Using Energy and Matter to Think About the Bottle Garden

To understand this phenomenon will require thinking about how plants get the materials (matter) they need to live, and how they use energy to grow.

Draw diagrams and use words to show what materials (matter) you think are inside the bottle. Thinking about how matter cycles through the bottle system can help us figure out how the spiderwort plants could survive over 50 years without any matter being added to the bottle.

This bottle system was placed 2 meters (6 feet) from a window, and Latimer turned the bottle every so often. Add your ideas about how energy might flow through the system to your diagrams.