Summary Follow the nitrogen as it breaks down from salmon flesh to ammonia (ammonification). Plants can absorb ammonia from soil. Science content Biology: Life Cycles (2) Biology: Food Webs, Ecosystems, Biomes (3, 4) Chemistry: Atoms, Molecules (3-7) Procedure Salmon bring nitrogen from the ocean into the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. This activity shows how using molecule models. Spawning salmon swim upstream, into the forests of the Pacific Northwest. They either die on the river banks after spawning, or are caught by animals and taken into the forest to be eaten. Carcasses are left behind by bears, coyotes, cougars, racoons, eagles, crows etc. Let's look at what happens to the salmon's carcass as it decomposes on the forest floor. Inside the salmon is muscle which is made of protein. (That's why fish is a good source of protein for us.) Zoom into the muscle to the molecules that make it up:https://www.mdpi.com/molecules/molecules-26-01559/article_deploy/html/i… or https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/image/FS454/Dtxd3vzk72/Ijalvp6fin/Ijalvp6fin-… (Molecules are tiny tiny particles that make up matter. Too small to see individually, but trillions of them together make up everything areound us.) Lay out molecule model of protein in a salmon’s body. The molecule is made up of atoms. We will look at one atom, the nitrogen, and see how it moves through the food web. Find the nitrogen atoms in this protein molecule - the blue atoms. (Blue is the symbol for a nitrogen atom worldwide.) Our salmon protein first is broken down by bacteria in the soil, into its units. I’ll break the protein apart and give you a piece. Combine your piece with water, as the soil bacteria do. (show image) This makes a single unit of protein (an amino acid). The decomposition does not stop here. The amino acid breaks apart to form ammonia. Make a molecule of ammonia from what you have. Ammonia is taken up by plant roots, and is a rich nutrient, allowing our Pacific Northwest trees to grow huge. Plants get nitrogen from salmon! 3/4 of plant nitrogen in the temperate rainforest is from salmon! I'll give you another oxygen so that you can make the other decomposition products, water and carbon dioxide (show image). Make these molecules of decomposition these extra oxygens, or design your own made-up molecules. Grades taught Gr 2 Gr 3
