​Desert Terrarium

In the real world, we can reduce the effects of global warming by finding cleaner energy sources that do not require burning fossil fuels, using transportation that does not require as much fossil fuels, and by replanting trees to take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Nothing, that we can find, is being done to fix the ramifications in the deserts. 

We came up with the idea of underground lakes. The basic concept was to put a cup underneath the sand to slowly allow water to go back into the plants. We made four of these ponds with paper cups, plastic wrap, and water. We cut off the top half of each paper cup, and poked holes in the base of the cup to assist the water drainage. We then wrapped plastic wrap over the top of each cup to keep it from instantly collapsing when it would be buried. We then placed each cup into the sand, punctured small holes in the plastic wrap, and poured water into each cup. We then patched the holes in the plastic wrap that we used to pour the water through, and buried the cups. Each cup slowly dissipated water into the soil for the plants over a period of several days. 

The mitigation strategy did not do much for our terrarium. It helped a little bit, but did not cause a significant change. One problem there was we did not refill the cups. If we did that might have changed the outcome a little. Another thing was that the mitigation strategy was not in place for very long.