Nature's Waste Matter

1. Where do you think the items came from originally?
2. Do you think the items look the same today as they did a month ago?
3. What happened to the matter in each item over the past month?
4. Do you think the items will be the same forever? Why or why not?
5. What do all of the items in the bag have in common?
6. Do you notice any relationships between the items in the bags? They all...
7. What evidence do you have that the items were all once part of a living thing?
8. Another name for "nature's waste" is "organic remains." These are all organisms that are no longer living, or parts of organisms that are discarded, excreted, or no longer needed.  What other examples of organic remains can you think of?
9. What would happen to each item from your bag if it were left outside? What might it look like in 6 months? What would cause it to change?
10. What would eventually happen to the waste MATTER in each type of organic remain?
11. Why isn't the earth just piled up with all the matter from nature's waste?
12. Why could all of the items in the mystery bags be classified as nature's waste?
13. Do you think that all living things generate waste? What makes you think that?

Answers:

1. It came from the trees, grass, and flowers.
2. No because they weren't waste and were young and may not have existed yet.
3. It has been decaying and has been getting very old.
4. No because they will turn into soil but the matter will stay the same.
5. They all came from nature like trees and they are all waste.
6. They all came from the same area and they are all from nature.
7. The evidence I have is you can see a tree and those things will drop and trees are living things.
8. Bones, chicken egg, some food, shirts, clothes.
9. It would rot because there is no water. It will also smell or be eaten by animals.
10. The matter would stay as matter but change into something else like rotten leaves.
11. Because natures waste turns into soil.
12. Because they were once an organism and now they died.
13. Yes because if we kept building up more and more matter, there wouldn't be enough left.