LaPaz Home Learning

In this activity you will be collecting some of the decomposers that live in and feed off of the leaf litter-the leaves and other organic matter which covers the ground in natural areas. Rather than picking through all that stuff by hand, you will take advantage of the fact that these critters don’t like light or heat by collecting them using a Tullgren funnel (also known as a Berlese funnel).
First off, you need to make and set up your Tullgren funnel.
Here is what it looks like:
Tullgren Funnel
you can make one easily by suspending a shop light above a large funnel, under which is placed a tin can filled partly with alcohol. Put a bit of screen or a piece of a citrus bag (or anything similar) at the mouth of the funnel to keep litter from falling through. Hint: You can make a large funnel out of posterboard or simply use a gallon milk jug with the bottom cut out!

Once you get it made, here is what you will do:
1) Go out and collect a plastic bag full of leaf litter. Go all the way down into the soil a bit when you collect it. Make sure it is pretty dry, not soaking wet.
2) Put it into a plastic dishpan and use tweezers to sort out any critters you can see easily. Identify what you can, list them in your journal, and draw any that interest you, then release them. Those you can’t identify right now you can put into alcohol to identify later.
3) Put the litter into your Tullgren funnel and turn on the light. The light and heat will drive the critters down into the collecting vial (you may want to put some Vaseline around the upper rim of your funnel to keep any critters from escaping out the top).
4) Wait until the next day and then see what you have collected. Look under a dissecting microscope if you have one. If not, use a high powered magnifying glass.
5) Identify your critters and list them in your journal.
6) Draw pictures of them in your journal.

here is a website that can help you identify your litter critters.