Making Potions: Biosphere

We’re following along with The Magnifying Glass on their Make Along Biosphere Project.

For part 1, we gathered our materials, which were all things we already had around our house (and in the yard.) Last weekend, for part 2, we mixed our concoction and sealed it in our jar.

Now, we are patiently waiting and observing for our microbes to grow.

It’s not too late to get started on this project and follow along with us. If you mix it up this weekend, you can still follow the weekly updates and will be on track. This is a fun project for all ages to participate in, and even my youngest helped prepare the ingredients for mixing.

We have our jar in the schoolroom on a shelf next to one of our frog tanks — it will get some indirect lamplight from the frog light and a little bit of daylight from a nearby window.

We can already see where the water has risen to the top and has started to look less cloudy. The dirt where we live is very red clay, so ours looks a little different from some we’ve seen online.

I found some educator’s resources about the Winogradsky Column here, and we’re heading to the library today to find some books about microbes. Here’s one fun resource for young kids.