Initial Plant Research

1.What sort of plant is it? Vegetable, Fruit, Root crop, tree, bush etc.
I plan on growing a Sugar Baby Watermelon

2.What is the growing season for this plant…remember San Diego has a unique growing climate and some of the information on the internet might say that something won’t grow in the winter but that might not be true for here
The growing season for sugar baby watermelons is anytime when it is sunny. Watermelon need a lot of sun, so it is preferable to plant them when it is sunny. It is hard to determine exactly what season would be good to plant watermelon, as long as it isn't cold, it's a good time to plant watermelon.

3.Should it be grown from seed? If so how long does it take to germinate? Does it require any special preparation? (ex. some seeds need to be frozen before they will germinate?
If there is a long growing season, it is better to directly sow the seeds into the soil.

4.How long does this plant take to go from seed to harvest? Does it make sense for the time scale of this semester?…does it matter? Maybe you would still like to think about how it might benefit the garden in the long term.
Sugar Baby Watermelon generally takes 75-85 days to harvest. I believe that is enough time for it to grow this semester and it can continually be grown because of our beautiful San Diego weather.

5.Does the plant grow best from cuttings, division, grafts or clones? Where can we get these materials?
This plant needs a lot of space to grow.

6.How much space does it require to grow and harvest a reasonable amount?
There should be at least three feet of space between each plant. The hole for the plant should be two feet wide and a food deep.

7.What are the soil requirements for this plant?
Sugar Baby's grow best in sandy loam soil. I wasn't able to find the exact NPK ratio.

8.Water are the watering requirements?
Watering requirements are pretty normal/average for sugar babies. Not too much water but since they are 95% water, they do require regular watering.

9.Can you find any information about good companion plants that should grow along with it?
I would think that any other kinds of melons would grow well with sugar babies.

10. Something unique about my plant.
I think that the plant I'm going to choose is very unique because it is a hybrid and it's edible.

write up

All of the information I collected made the decision harder for me. If I were to pick biodiversity I’m not sure what I would do for my senior project, I think that I would try to go and do something about the international year of biodiversity and try to raise awareness. I thought that the first article and the second article were very interesting. They both gave me information I could use and both had very strong points. To raise awareness for biodiversity I would want to do something for Margaret’s class so that I could make some sort of digital art. I would not want to do a documentary; I would want to do something that shows the drastic affect humans have on biodiversity. I would want to take the side of the animals and explain how humans have an extreme affect on different habitats. I’m not exactly sure that I want to do biodiversity, I want to explore more and make sure that there isn’t something that I’m more interested in.

Initial Research and Write Up

Annotations:

Article 1.)

J. Emmette, Duffy. "Biodiversity - Encyclopedia of Earth." Encyclopedia of Earth. N.p., 28 Dec. 2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. http://www.eoearth.org/article/biodiversity#The_magnitude_of_biodiversity>

“Biological diversity is of fundamental importance to the functioning of all natural and human-engineered ecosystems, and by extension to the ecosystem services that nature provides free of charge to human society.” This essay was mostly about how biodiversity is a fundamental and vital part of our existence. A huge reason why biodiversity is decreasing is because of the lack of varied habitat. This article explained what biodiversity was and how it affects us. This article also explains the distribution of biodiversity as well as the human disturbance factors. I found this article very interesting and very helpful. I enjoyed how it explained everything in an easy to understand scientific matter.” Human intervention in ecosystem function have been expressed through habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, and pollution.” I found this article very reliable and I do not believe that it has a bias.

Article 2.)

Samper, Cristián. "Planetary boundaries: Rethinking biodiversity : article : Nature Reports Climate Change."Nature Publishing Group : science journals, jobs, and information. N.p., 23 Sept. 2009. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. http://www.nature.com/climate/2009.99.html>

This article was mostly about the different theories about biodiversity. It didn’t have many concrete facts, but it did have a lot of interesting theories. One theory that I found really interesting was “extinction of species should not exceed ten species per million per year. If this is exceeded, they argue, we risk irreversible environmental change.” I didn’t find this article very interesting, I do not believe that it was very reliable and it ended up being slightly biased. It did not provide the kind of information that I wanted, and for that reason I say that it wasn’t very helpful.

Article 3.)

"Biodiversity loss a crisis forgotten | Manila Bulletin."mb.com.ph | Manila Bulletin. N.p., 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. .

This article was interesting because it talked about what we can do about the decreasing biodiversity. It talked about International Year of Biodiversity and how a lot of countries are going to do something to raise awareness about the decreasing biodiversity. It also included information about how every animal matters, “from the smallest insect to the biggest whale. Biodiversity is the web of life that includes the full-range of ecosystems, species living within such ecosystems, and the genetic variety of those species produced by nature or shaped by humans.” I found this article very interesting as well as full of information. I didn’t think that it was very biased and it gave me new information.

Socratic Seminar Reflection

I thought that our socratic seminar went really well. A lot of different points that I had never thought of were brought up. A lot of ideas I had were brought up and I got a deeper understanding of them. I thought the discussion about whether or not we should start with education was a very interesting. Ariana thought that we should do more than educate young kids, she believed that we should enforce regulation as well as working with kids and educating them about what they're eating. Lauren thought that we should start with education and as the young people get older, start enforcing regulation.

I think the idea of putting farm animals back on the farm is a good idea, as well as making sure that we reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use.

Weekend Homework

Our homework this weekend was to ask if anyone in our family was a farmer. When John first asked this question, I tried to think about who in my family was a farmer, I couldn't think of anyone. I came home and I asked my mom if anyone in our family was a farmer. She told me that my great grandfather was a farmer, or as she said, a "campasino." My great grandfather lived of his land and he also fed my grandfathers family of 8. My great uncles also became farmers and lived off their land.
Since my father grew up in Morelia, a bigger city in Mexico, he doesn't recall having any farmers in his family.

Space

While talking about space today in class, I couldn't help but think of how lucky we are. We are lucky that we exist. We're on a small planet that we all have the opportunity to make an impact on. We do not know what else or who else is out there, seeing as how there are so many different galaxies and even that many more planets that are unexplored. Like John said, I think it's important to not waste our only opportunity on this earth. We must all try to make a positive impact on it while we can if we want it to be here for an extended amount of time.

I also found if very interesting that everything has a schedule. Stars become either red planets or red supergiants and can either become white dwarfs or black holes. It's amazing to see that we're all just a physics problem.

Curiosity About the Natural World

There are many things that I am curious about concerning the natural world. I would like to learn more about different ecosystems. Such as the difference between oceanic, forest, meadow and agro-ecosystems. I'm also curious about different plants and why there are so many. I know that there are plants that have no real purpose, as they are commonly referred to as weeds. I also have a strong curiosity about how humans can have such a strong effect on the environment even though we only aquire a small amount of the living biomass. I also want to learn what kind of things we can do to lower the negative impact we have on the world.