Honors Report

Tomas Pena

Honors Project Write Up

My project for Environmental Science is an aquaponics system. The system I built is designed to sustain fish and plants efficiently. There have been many challenges with this project, but I feel the knowledge I gained was worth it. I had the aquaponics system designed to have goldfish in a small aquarium as a sort of attraction in the class. The plants growing would be a bonus, providing cleaner water for the fish. The fish would provide nutrients for the plants in turn.

The issues I’ve had with the project include starting up without necessary materials, and also setting up the aquarium incorrectly. I rushed to get the aquarium set up with fish in it. This did not turn out the way I had intended though. I did not have a filter for the water and the plants I set up did not have adequate lighting. Within the first few weeks several goldfish died, and I had to remove one plant because it was wilted and dying. Now there are 3 surviving goldfish, who have gotten used to the aquarium. More fish will be brought later from the fish store to inhabit my aquarium.

I recently supplied a light and a filter for the system. The light should allow the tomato plant growing in the system to have enough required daylight for photosynthesis. The filter should prevent the water in the tank from getting over polluted from excess fish waste. This thus helps the system in case something goes wrong within the system. Now it has reached a ‘homeostasis’ of sorts, but to be sure, I’m going to add more fish and wait for the plant to grow.

Aquaponics can be done in many ways, so this project has many different solutions to tackling problem. Which is why I will continue to work and modify my project. Maintenance is key, and my objective is not to have a “final product” or a fullgrown plant or fish to eat from it, my project is about testing out an aquaponics system, learning how it works, and being able to educate people on it as well.

Here is how I approached the project:

The first two weeks I made did research and designed an aquaponics system. I had to get a list of materials to retrieve, and also a note of how I would put together the system to work. My first problem arose when I did not know exactly what to do as far as the design went for my project. Going to a hydroponic store and seeing their aquaponics system gave me the idea of what to use in the project. The next two to three weeks was used to retrieve the materials. A pump, tubes for piping, canisters to hold plants, clay medium, and an aquarium with the normal aquarium gear was bought and brought back to the class. I had gotten the fish and seedlings a few days afterwards, starting up the system. The shock of transfer killed off a couple of the goldfish on the first few days. Later I had to buy an automatic feeder which could feed the fish during Thanksgiving break. And afterwards, I’d gotten a hold of the aquarium day light and filter. A timer was provided by Lia.

If I had to say something to anyone hoping to follow in my footsteps, know what you’re getting. Get everything before hand and set up the tank before transferring the fish and plants.

Picture of the fish.

Ship wreck decoration.

Wider look of the tank.

Tomato seedling that is growing in the system.

View of the entire aquaponics system (without light).

I was able to pay for all the materials. The cost went up to $271.67

Honors Post 4: Author’s tone, audience intentions:

With each example, Gladwell provides his own tone in giving the explanation. Through the writing he tries to stay non-biased, and mainly wants to educate the reader. His intended audience is everyone interested in learning about human society, and how big changes get made. Gladwell tries to reach out to the reader with each example. He hopes to inform and inspire people about tipping points, so that good changes can be made and bad ones be prevented. To sum it up, the author assumes the persona of a teacher.

Survey 1

I'm looking for your input to:

a. help me understand what works well for student learning

Hands-on-work helps with student learning, especially (for me in particular) when we get to work on things we are passionate about, we strive more for success in our learning and work.

b. help me understand what can be done differently to support student learning

I like to be more involved in what is going on. If I sit down for long periods of time, it would be better if I feel involved in what I am learning instead of being in out of the loop and not understanding what is going on. Maybe occasional questions would help with long lectures.

c. help me understand how your real experience has been so far.

So far I've learned a lot from the class. Granted there have been moments where I have blanked out during lessons, what I retain from the class is fulfilled through my own work. Working particularly on my honors project has helped me to enjoy the class.

Organism Post

(possibly) "Portulaca oleracea"

(possibly) "pigweed" or "little hogweed"

Has a smooth red stem and leaves protruding from the ends of the stem.
Grows with roots clumped in areas. Grows over dirt, stems going horizontally to the ground, connecting and crossing over creating a strong and difficult to break hold on dirt. 

?
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Unidentified plant roots. Roots are used for taking up water and nutrients for plants to grow and use photosynthesis.

(inevitably me and my partner will have to reshoot the pictures. For now this is what I have edited, and my partner has pictures on his blog that he has edited. Tristan's blog.)

Honors Post 3: Author's Writing Style

Malcolm Gladwell uses a lot of examples in his book. Each chapter with a main example, and it gets more and more detailed as Gladwell goes on with his writing. He brings more examples that are related to the main one and he provides information about how the examples of certain tipping points and people work. He switches from 3^rd person to 1^st person, depending on the kind of example. The style is more fashioned to where Gladwell is talking to the reader through his writing    .

Honors Post Journal Check up 2

Thesis of the book?

"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire"

Malcolm Gladwell puts together this book to show an explain the tipping points in society. With this, it is hard to see a thesis statement in his writing. I think that he might be going for a certain stance for improvement in society, like showing people about tipping points and asking them to play their part to have good tipping points and lessen the bad ones.

Honors Reading Post 1

Entry 1: The Author's Credibility and Background.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote 4 books, The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw; And Other Adventures, all 4 being a New York Times Bestseller.

Malcolm was born in England, moved to Canada, and finally resided in the US where he worked for many journalism companies before working for the New York Times. His work on two articles gave him the basis for the book "The Tipping Point". I think that the author thus has the experience to have written such a book. If there is any bias in it (which I have not discovered) Then it might only show up near the end of the book.