“Bottle Biology” sprang from the musings of Dr. Paul Williams. Studying the compost pile he built one day while raking his yard, he wondered about what occurred inside. Placing some of the leaves in an empty soda bottle, he watched them decompose; thus, the idea for Bottle Biology came to life. With a team and funding from the National Science Foundation, the Bottle Biology Program set out to develop curricular material that makes use of 2-liter plastic soda bottles – items that usually end up in the garbage. Although the program officially ended in 1993, the activities developed by Williams and the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison live on via the website and companion book.
The website is divided into seven major sections: Introduction, Bottle Basics, BB Toolkit, Building Blocks, Column Investigations, Hanging Bottles, and Reference Links. These sections contain all the information needed to start...