Fifth Grade Funeral

In the fifth grade our teacher had us do a special project. We had to make an ecosystem out of soda bottles and tape. An ecosystem is supposed to be some kind of self sufficient environment where plants and land critters live along with sea plants and sea creatures.

The bottom layer had water and sea weed in it, which was supposed to help the top part. The top part the ecosystem had dirt and little plants in it, but we also had to put animals in the ecosystem too. So we put a grasshopper and a spider in the top part with the dirt, and we put a snail and a fish in the water part.

We spent the next couple of weeks watching over our little ecosystems, and we would record anything new that we saw. The grasshopper died, and I’m not sure where the spider went but I’m sure it didn’t survive either. Later the plants started growing and we all got really excited because our ecosystems were all working.

I would watch my fish and snail everyday and they would simply go about their lives eating and pooping everywhere. The snail would clean up everything by eating it. he would go all over the sides of the bottle and eat the algae stuff that grew on it. He also ate the fish poop. The fish ate the see weed I think, and would usually just swim around and move the rocks.

At the end of the project we got to take everything home with us. I was so happy because the fish and snail were my first pets. When I got home I showed my mom my ecosystem and said I could keep it in the kitchen. Everyday I when I got home I would watch them for hours. They made me really happy whenever I saw them doing stuff.

Anyways, after about a month, I woke and my mom didn’t say good morning like she always did. I felt it was strange but I didn’t think much about it cause I wanted to see my fish and snail. Well on that morning, I found out why my mom didn’t say anything to me at first. When I went to see my ecosystem the first thing I noticed was that the snail looked funny, and that I couldn’t find my fish. So as I turned my ecosystem around to look fir the fish my mom comes up and says she’s sorry, and that’s when I found my fish, squished under the rocks. My snail had died as well. My mom had apparently knocked over my ecosystem while trying to clean but had been too lazy to move it instead of attempting to clean around it.

I went to my room and cried the rest of the day. That was my first experience with death, and it has not been my last.