On the left is a picture from November of 2008, when first grade students made a terrarium out of 2-liter bottles. On the right is a picture of that project today, 8/25/2016, almost 8 years later. The terrarium has not been opened in 8 years, yet the plant is alive and well. All it needed for 8 years was sunlight. Yes, the bottle is not as clear now. However, the point is that it was self-sustaining. This is one of the best successes of a microcosm experiment, “micro” meaning small and “cosm” meaning world. The sealed bottle was a small world all of this own. This quarter we are going to try to one up this experiment and make an aquatic microcosm with both plants and animals.