The Ecosystem We Live In

Tuesday afternoon, my biology class went on a nature walk. We walked through the back of campus into a small woodsy area known as the Back 40. We were then asked what ecosystem we live in and why we know that. After having us gather different things from the woods and coming back to say what they were, we arrived at the conclusion that we live in a deciduous forest. 

Now, why we know that? The forest part is obvious. The area surrounding us is full of flowers, weeds, grass and trees, and if we did not have the school buildings in the area, the woods would be even bigger. Deciduous is defined as changing, or according to my laptop dictionary, "shedding its leaves". The woods in the Back 40 are filled with oak trees, otherwise known as deciduous trees. Therefore, the ecosystem of eastern New York is a deciduous forest.

The other question that was asked was what environmental factors were important to the composition and activity of the ecosystem. Some of the ones we thought of were rain, wind, temperature, and sunlight. All of these things affect the forest in different ways. The wind is what helps the plants to reproduce and the temperature, sunlight and rain affects how much or how well the plants grow. (For example, this spring when the snow kept coming and going just before summertime, all of the trees that produce flowers were strongly affected by the cold weather and became confused to what time of year it was, in result, they dropped their fruits just before the beginning of summer.)