In our science class one of the topics we are learning is the water cycle. The water cycle is very long or short process in which water travels from one place back to that place. As water travels through the water cycle there could possibly be pollutants, pollutants are when a harmful substance introduced into the ground, air or water that harms the environment or has undesired effects. There are many types of pollutants, I will not name them all but I will name a few examples such as nitrate pollutants, nitrate pollutants are when water flows through a farmer’s field collecting the harmful fertilizer into a river or creek making the water polluted. There is also point source pollutants and non-point source pollutants. A point source pollutant is when a pollutant can be traced back to its origin like oil in the ocean from an oil leak on a boat. A non-point source pollutant is when a pollutant can not be traced back to its origin.
Our class has been working on Gizmos and, making our own water cycle. In the Gizmo we would start our water cycle from where every we wanted. We could start as water vapor in the atmosphere, the oceans, water falls, rivers etc as long as we could get the water back into the river, atmosphere, oceans etc. We have also watched a BBC documentary about water and how it moves through the environment.
We have also learned about the nitrogen cycle (Formula for nitrogen N2). The nitrogen cycle is how nitrogen cycles through the environment. The process starts as nitrogen in the atmosphere as a gas, then the nitrogen gas is taken into the ground by Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria. Then the Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria turns the Nitrogen into Ammonium in the process of Ammonification, this then is taken by nitrifying bacteria and in the process of Nitrification the Ammonium is converted into nitrates and nitrites the nitrates are then absorbed by plant or decomposers and the plants or decomposers are eaten by animals and then the nitrogen is then release from the body when we release bodily fluids.
This is what we have mostly learned about since the last blog post of mine in November of 2018. I will be planning on updating this with a newer blog post in a few weeks/months. The next blog post might be about testing or projects that my class may do in the the few weeks/months.