DECOMPOSITION RATE IN THE FOREST OF SCHOOL YARD: A DIDACTIC INTERVENTION

Year 2016, Volume: 5 , 241 - 243, 01.09.2016

Maria Kalathaki

Abstract

For the preparation of theoretical instruction of the
concept of natural decomposition, and the teaching research through an annual
project for the paper decomposition rate in soil, utilized, in a Lyceum,
variety of teaching tools and techniques. For the demands of the teaching, was
searched the synonymous and linked terms to decomposition and decomposers into
the Curricula of the Lyceum Biological courses and textbooks. Papers, sealed in
perforated plastic bags, buried in the soil periodically during the school
year, and with their haul, dried, weighed and thus exported their weight
reductions as result of the action of soil decomposers.During the decomposition
are taking place many and varied changes relating to and affected by many
factors. These are the effects particularly of the temperature influences the
speed of the chemical reactions occurring in the degradable materials and on
the microorganisms that carry out it, the effects of moisture, since water
hydrolyzes biological macromolecules of the organic matter degraded to smaller,
and generally any changes in the structure and synthesis of the molecules of
the decomposing organic materials. The rate of reduction of the initial paper
weight shows that cellulose degradation has different rates in different
seasons. Decomposition was faster in the early autumn, when drought ceased to
be a limiting factor and in late spring when the temperature no longer was a
limiting factor. In Mediterranean climates, like Crete, where the sun and wet
winters alternating with warm, long and dry summer, intense decomposing
activity observed at the time of the high temperature associated with water
availability, high soil moisture, and even the moisture preceded, that the
chemical bonds in molecules of paper cellulose to weaken and break down
readily.

Keywords

Paper decomposition, school project, didactic research

References

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