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Before we exited to explore the diversity of plants in the patch of soil outside Room 100, I predicted I would find at least 100 uniques forms of plant life visible with my unaided eyes.

I made the prediction without any information about the appearance of the patch. Arriving outside, I noticed that the patch was not as lushly populated as I thought. There were many bare spots. I started with the largest plants, the trees and bushes, that got my attention first. I compared the leaves to separate them as unique organisms. I looked for flowering plants that were not woody, grasses, weeds, and then non-vascular plants. I came up with 11 but felt that there might be more.

I would hope that students would gain from this exercise:

• There is a difference between opinion- what you think- and an idea that is supported by fact. Observing the organisms in the patch as opposed to guessing the conditions that might support a prediction of the number of unique organisms
• More practice to increase their powers of observation
• The importance or lack of importance of size as a characteristic - organisms may appear differently at different stages of development