Aquatic Biomes

   After watching the video and reading the article I would say that aquatic ecosystems are not in the best shape that they could be in. Many things can cause this biome to suffer from damage and pollution which hurts the aquatic population, most of these are human effects and can be stopped if people actually stop and think about what they are doing. Over fishing is one of the largest causes. This is causing the ecosystems to damage the aquatic food chain from not having the variety and amount of species within each ecosystem . This also damages the aquatic food chains by damaging or killing other producers and consumers . This is because the fish are not feeding on plants or algae and larger fish are not able to feed on those fish that are being killed out of the ecosystem. Some fishing can be done with out disturbing the ecosystem but the fishers must be careful of how much they fish so the ecosystem and the food chain still stay in good shape. The resources that the fish and other sea creatures need to survive are being hurt through the things that humans do such as scuba diving and boating. Not only are the resources being taken away from the ecosystem but also many nutrients that the ecosystem needs to survive are gone. Because these things have been taken out of the ecosystem, they are defined as a limiting factor for the population.
Also many other activities are being done to harm the aquatic ecosystems. Some of them include pollution of chemicals from boats or the boat motors can kill aquatic life . Also while scuba divers go diving they can hit or use dangerous tools and can kill the aquatic life. Also another thing that can harm the ecosystem is the heating of the earth. This means the weather and climate will drastically change due to the heating of the earth activity. One of the many causes to near extinction of coral reefs would have to be run-offs. Because the earth is heating , it can cause the coral to die , which can damage and kill many habitats. Every thing that was listed above can dramatically hurt the aquatic ecosystems and will be seen in the changes to the abiotic factors and biotic factors.
   I think that the reason we are losing our amazing aquatic ecosystem is because we have careless people in our world and it gets me mad to realize that all of these amazing ecosystems are being destroyed and I will never have a chance to experience swimming in them because of damages that have caused them to die or just not look as great as they used to be. To realize that people don't care about the ecosystem, it makes me wonder what they are going to think when they actually realize what's happening and its to late to fix any damage that has happened.
   On my opinion I think everyone on earth has a role in protecting our biosphere. We all get to make the decisions on what and how we do something. And when we make a choice it will affect us and the ecosystem in ether good or bad ways. As the controllers of the world, we have the power to maintain the amazing aquatic ecosystem but we also have the will to make bad choices to it.
I think that most people do not realize and understand their individual impact on the biosphere. People may believe that there is an overall bigger issue causing these issues to happen but they don’t take any of the blame. This means they are not willing to make changes to help the larger system. If we ever want to make better decisions for the ecosystem we better do it now because if we don’t now and do it later it just might be to late and we will regret it!

Austin Vickrey

Power Balance Bands!

Mr. Whipp,


My thoughts on the power balance bands are that they rely on the placebo effect to be effective in providing power and balance. This evidence is supported by several blind demonstrations upon which participants had the power chip and allegedly became stronger. However when fake power chip cards were given out the difference in power was not significantly different.

My hypothesis is that the band only works when people believe that the chip causes them to have more strength and balance. The way I would test this is by telling a majority of people who believe in the power chip to do a balance test while possessing a power chip in their pocket. Then conduct balance and strength tests on the participants and collect data. Then exchange the power chips with fake chips without participants knowing and reconduct the same tests then compare results. Then tell the participants to give up the fake power chips and conduct tests a third time then compare all results .

It is important to collect all sides of the issue so we can set up experiments in a way to answer all the issues on all sides.

Mr. Whipps class

This summer my favorite part was just being able to relax and not have to worry about tests and home work.

My favorite thing about coming back to school was getting to see my friends.

After the first 3 days in 8th grade my favorite thing would have to be the teachers and the new schedule.