It’s been a while since I’ve last posted. I been working on big projects and finishing up middle school (plus prepping for high school). Because of this, I wanted to share the capstone project I’ve been working on for my Inertia class.
For this project, I chose to study how CO₂ changes when a semi-sealed terrarium is subjected to abnormal light cycles. In the process, I convinced my parents to buy me some sensors, struggled with microbial blooms (those pesky microbes, always raising the CO₂ to unreasonable levels), and learned a lot about ecology (how living organisms interact with and change their environment). The results surprised me, with CO₂ behaving in ways I hadn’t predicted, especially during the dark phases.
I detail it all on my website, http://terrariumtracker.com, which has a live dashboard tracking CO₂, temperature, and humidity in real time, plus a full breakdown of my results in the form of a scientific paper. If you’re curious about what this terrarium is doing right now, go take a look.
Special thanks to Lauren Fell (a space educator and researcher), who gave me advice on designing my experiment and is doing important work to send plants to the Moon. Also, thanks as always to my writing mentor Brianne, for helping me progress in my efforts to write scientifically and introducing me to ecology-style citations, and my Inertia guide Zain, for the assignment and encouragement.
