The Horse 2020/21

EDX 4.3 Soil Biodiversity Characteristics

Soil biodiversity is the variety of life that exists within the soil, including bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and termites. A teaspoon of topsoil typically contains a vast range of different species and up to 6 billion microorganisms.

The group of large organisms in the soil is visible to the human eye. (Macroscopic)
For example:

• Plants
• soil fauna
• worms (earthworms, pot worms)
• isopods, millipedes, centipedes

The group of small organisms in the soil isn't visible to the human eye. (Microscopic)
For example:

• Soil microbes - bacteria, fungi
• microfauna (nematodes)

If we take a look at an arable field or a grassland then we see, aboveground, a few plant species: one plant species in a monocrop and up to 50 species per square meter in species-rich grassland.

Now if we look at the number of different species or the diversity, we can see the smaller the organisms the more different species there are, ranging from 10 species of earthworms to thousands of species of bacteria and fungi.

Soil life is sensitive to disturbance and compaction of soil because that affects the amount of space and air available for plant roots and other soil biotas.

It is also sensitive to chemicals that end up in the soil water, or pollution like oil spills that block access to food, air, and water. Life in soil is also sensitive to temperature and soil acidity.
Soil organisms feed directly or indirectly on plant inputs and not all species like to eat the same thing. So the type of plant you grow, like the type of crop or green manure that you add to the soil, can all influence the abundance and diversity of the soil life.

Geothermal the new energy from the ground

Did you know we can use energy from the ground to heat our houses and buildings? 
The earth holds a lot of heat in its interior. With a combination of geothermal and heat pumps, it is now possible and it also saves energy. Because of the high potential, there are even new trials to produce electricity with earth's heat, but that needs a bit more time to be perfect. 

This new way of heating saves our environment and has many more good aspects. :)

More...

Heat resources - geothermal heating
In my home, we heat with the heat of the earth, the so-called geothermal heating. It is renewable energy and can be easily extracted. We use this energy to warm our house and also to warm our water.

Geothermal energy refers to the use of heat from the earth's interior. This energy stored in the earth can be used with the help of various methods. In most cases, geothermal probes are used in combination with heat pumps to heat single-family homes and large buildings. Geothermal probes go to depths of 200 to 400 meters.

The heat stored in the earth's crust (thermal energy). It is versatile and can be used for heating and cooling, as well as for electricity generation or in a combined heat and power system. The energy potential is enormous: 99% of the earth is warmer than 1000 °C. And geothermal energy also has many advantages in terms of environmental friendliness: no burning of fossil fuels and thus no harmful emissions.

Post on don't waste my energy for Social Media

Finally our post on dontwastemy.energy is online. We have been looking into the topic of urban gardening and wanted to find out more about it. We did an interview, a survey and a collaboration. 

Go and check out our post on Urban gardening on don't waste my energy !!!

Debora and Melane

Our experience so far

Review and assessment of things done and still to do

We have completed all orders that are important for the horse. Furthermore, we have already had a very exciting interview with the apprentice of an urban gardening shop. 
Link to the post of the interview: https://2021.the-horse.education/post/interview-shop-urban-gardening 

In the collaboration, we could start with Reshma and Ashish from India. We could already give each other tips and had our first google meeting. It was very exciting and funny. For our survey, we could also ask several friends and families from other countries. 
Link to the post of the collaboration: https://2021.the-horse.education/post/collaboration-urban-gardening 

The only thing we have to do until our presentation is the brochure about our topic and the preparation for the presentation. We also have to evaluate the survey and post it on the horse.

Experience on don't waste my energy:

Our researches went quite well and we informed ourselves quickly. It was interesting to find all these interesting facts about urban gardening and how it already is in progress, so we made up a few ideas on how we all can improve and increase urban gardening, especially for cities. 

It was a bit harder to make the survey and collaboration. We had a little while to figure out the survey tool, but we handled it quite fast. The hardest part of the survey was to motivate the people to fill it up and share it. 

The collaboration was great we had interesting ideas and tried to realize them. Time differences made it hard to communicate with our team in India and with a full and stressful timetable it seemed to be impossible to not miss the deadlines, but with chatting instead of video calls we solved our problem. 

We made a working hypothesis, which was hard to prove. We couldn’t find any information, so we only assumed. 

The good thing is we planned an interview. In the beginning, we were a bit scared, that it wouldn’t work, because of the Corona situation and that maybe the garden shop owner wouldn’t be so open about it. We still went for it. We prepared our questions and went spontaneously to a gardening shop. To our surprise, they were totally open to our questions and we also proved our working hypothesis. 

With a lot of planning and good communication and preparations, it all went really well.

Debora and Melane

Project bubble

Debora and Melane

Urban gardening

Do you know urban gardening or do you already do it? In our project, we want to explain to people what this is and how you can do it yourself. Urban gardening has become more and more important in the last years and brings life into the home. All that is needed is time, interest, and the right equipment.
It is for everyone and is a healthy investment and can be practiced even when space is limited.

We spoke to an apprentice of an Urban gardening shop to find out more. This was a very exciting interview. We also want to do a survey and will make a small handout which you can download later. Thank you very much for filling out our survey and you will find our whole project at the end on Don't waste my energy.

Debora and Melane

Collaboration with India

We have a collaboration with Reshma Rajesh and Ashish P John from India. We got in contact at the very beginning in class and we talked together via video. There we exchanged numbers and now we have a collaboration together.
On 26.10.2020 we had a short chat with Reshma. She will comment on our project and we also commented on her project. We think that we connect our projects well. We can also send her our survey and she will distribute it in her school.

We can also send our survey to America, Germany, England, Netherlands, Brazil, Austria, Sri Lanka, and India.
It will be a great survey of many different countries. :-)

Debora and Melane

Survey

This are our questions for the survey:

1. Male or female

2. age

3. country

4. Do you know what urban gardening is?

5. What do you understand by urban gardening?

6. Do you do urban gardening and if so what do you do? 

7. How important are green spaces in cities to you?

8. How important is urban gardening to you?  

9. How do you think urban gardening is already being realized?

10. How could urban gardening be better realized? What are your tips?

Here you can find the link to our survey.
https://ee.humanitarianresponse.info/x/YwIJv3cU

Debora and Melane

Interview with apprentice

We made a little interview with the apprentice of the shop Raschle Gartencenter, Einkaufscenter, «di alt Fabrik», Florhofstrasse 9, 8820 Wädenswil, Switzerland.

Link to the Shop: https://www.urbangardeningshop.ch/

That was our questions and her answers:

1. Do you think that urban gardening will be realized in Switzerland and especially in the cities? 

• In our shop, we always have urban gardening products, which are presented once a year in an exhibition in spring. Especially for people who do not have a garden or balcony, planting in your own home can be a good thing. During the lockdown, many people even came to our shop from Zurich to Wädenswil ZH and I think that many of them already do urban gardening without realizing it. 

2. Which age group does most urban gardening?

• This is very different. Students are certainly a large group and they come very often. Of course, many older people and parents also come. You could say that urban gardening has no age limit. It is used from young to old. 

3. How can we motivate people to do urban gardening? 

• You could say that plants are like pets. They need a lot of time and also love. In addition, plants bring a lot of color into life and it beautifies the living room as well as the balcony or garden. You could motivate people with these beautiful aspects. 

4. What are the reasons why people do not do urban gardening?

• People do not have the time and they are rarely at home. I would say that time is the biggest reason for this. Another reason could be that you have an allergy to the plant or for example the child or pet that eats the plant and it could be poisonous. 

5. What influence do you think Corona has on urban gardening?

• In the lockdown, we were flooded by customers. The shop was full and people queued outside and we received many orders. The people were at home and had time to do urban gardening. Even now urban gardening is still very much in trend. 

6. What are other advantages of urban gardening apart from the aspect that you know it is healthy?

• You know where the product comes from and you have planted it yourself. You had to take responsibility and you also lived cheaper, because you had to buy seeds once. This is especially true for perennial plants. You know that the product contains no chemicals. 

7. What do customers appreciate about your shop? 

• Customers appreciate the good advice and the wide range of products. We take a lot of time for our customers and support and advise them from the beginning to the end. We explain the products to the customers and also sell and inform them about additional products. We show them the advantages of urban gardening. 

Debora and Melane

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Have fun and write cool and correct in English. :-)