the present;
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Y 7:29 AM
Reflective summary
I have learnt from this research that the number of mangrove swamps in the world is shrinking as people cut down mangrove trees and affect the growth of them. I feel that all people living in this world should do our part to conserve these places for the future generations to know such wonderful places existed and for them to have a place to do helpful research on the animals and plants for their school work.
At first, I thought that mangroves were just scary places with many trees and deep swamps and there will not be any people found there. Eventually after I went through the virtual tour and did many researchers on the place, I found that it is an interesting place with many organisms that we have never seen before or even heard before. The mangrove is actually a place with many reptiles like the crocodiles and maybe some species of snakes. There is also the mudskipper which is the only fish that can stay out of water for a long time. I also found the fiddler crab which is the only crab which has a claw bigger than the other which makes them look comical when they move.
I will play my part by introducing people to watch mangrove conservation videos and do some researches on mangroves to know better of the place to reduce the hurt the people make to mangrove conservations. I suggest that people ban people from going in to mangrove conservations in case they get hurt or lost. In another way, it also keeps people from hurting mangroves and reduces them. It will make this world a better place because trees beautify the environment and makes the air fresh and nice.
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Saturday, March 28, 2009
Y 7:26 AM
Reflective journal 5 I went to look at the virtual tour for mangrove conservation and saw that there are many organisms that many people do not know exists. Like the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) which can deliver an extremely painful pinch and are noted for being particularly aggressive and difficult to handle safely. Even when out of the water, they can still live. The natural predators of the blue crab include eels, drum, spot, trout, some sharks, and cownose sting rays. The blue crab is an omnivore, eating both plants and animals and consume thin-shelled bivalves, annelids, small fish, plants and nearly any other item they can find, including carrion and their own kind.
Sometimes in mangroves of other countries, there may be baby sharks swimming in between roots when there is a high tide. The organisms living on mangrove trees include, the isopod, Ligia, the mangrove crab, Aratus pisonii and the mangrove oyster, Crassostrea rhizophorae, a flat tree oyster. Other microorganisms include several species of sponges, bryozoans, hydrozoans, and the fan worm, Sabellastarte.
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Monday, March 23, 2009
Y 7:25 AM
Reflective journal 4
Finally the powerpoint for the group is done! I really need to thank my group mates for their great effort in contributing to the powerpoint. I remember the first day before we even started, nobody was interested with the research and some were quite reluctant to do the research so the members had to push each other and finally we produced great results.
The powerpoint was done very nicely after combining all our members researches and adding some extras, there was even a nice video in it, thanks to our members responsible for media. I watched the video for the powerpoint and found it very interesting and funny. I found other videos from that video and found other interesting things about other mangrove animals. I watched a documentary on how people got stuck in the mangrove because of the crocodiles and survive to tell the story.
The story is about how four people went canoeing and decided to go deeper into the mangrove to find more interesting things and met a crocodile unfortunately that flipped the canoe over and ate the people till only one is left and killed the crocodile then came back to tell the story.
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Sunday, March 15, 2009
Y 7:24 AM
Reflective journal 3
I went searching for interesting facts of the animals and plants as that was what I actually had to search for to contribute to the PowerPoint for the group. I surfed the net and found many interesting facts of plants and animals in the mangrove conservation.
First I searched on the mangrove animals and found out that their roots may be scary at night as the tree seem to be standing on many legs, next, I saw that ferns also can be found there and I saw that ferns were actually around earth for two hundred million years before flowering plants evolved.
Then I searched for animals and found that saltwater crocodiles can use their tail to propel most of their body out of the water and once the fiddler crab loses its larger claw, the smaller claw will grow to be the larger one and the smaller one will grow back, and the most interesting thing is they cannot swim. And a new born swamp wallaby is just the size of a tiny jelly bean and which I think is very adorable. Mangrove conservations are really getting interesting to me.
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Monday, March 9, 2009
Y 7:23 AM
Reflective journal 2
Later on, I researched on animals in the mangrove swamps and found that some animals are very adorable like the flying fox which looks like a half bat half squirrel creature, the fiddler crab which has a claw larger than the other, the wallaby which looks like a miniature fox and the mudskipper which is the only fish that can live on land for several hours and some dangerous ones like the saltwater crocodile which could gobble humans down in one gulp and the sea snake which is ten times more venomous than the king cobra.
There are some giant ones like water buffalos (they weight 21/2 tons), saltwater crocodile (they are said to be 27 feet in the wild), great egrets and the jabirus (stands 5 feet tall and has a wingspan of 8 feet long) which is the largest among their species. I find that researching on animals are so much fun than the plants as the net tells us how the animals live which consists of their habitats, the food they eat and how they contribute to the mangroves and the environment, some websites even let us listen to the sounds a particular animal makes. I also found out that some of these animals may be endangered and humans have the right to protect them from extinction.
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Sunday, March 8, 2009
reflective journal 1
Y 7:22 AM
Reflective Journal 1
Our group for English alternate assessment is doing a PowerPoint presentation for mangrove swamp conservation. Before I did the research on mangrove swamps, I thought that mangrove swamps were boring places with many trees and different plants but after collecting information on that place, I found out that it’s a place full of many different plants and animals like mangrove trees alone already have three species of them, the red (Rhizophora mangle), white (Laguncularia racemosa) and black (Avicennia germinans) mangrove.
From the research, I found out that mangrove trees are actually trees that can survive in salt water. Mangroves protect coastal communities from the storms and hurricanes as have roots that protrude out of the soil. Some animals need the mangrove trees to survive, example, sometimes there may be oysters stuck onto the mangrove tree's roots and fishes use mangrove roots as shelters. This explains that mangrove trees are so special and that we should protect all mangrove trees left in the world.
Labels: reflective journal 1
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Saturday, March 7, 2009
cross country and total defence
Y 7:30 AM
On total defence day, it is our annual school cross country meet and we had to go to Nanyang polytechnic to borrow their track to run. As I lived at the corner far from the track in the campus, I had to walk a long time to reach the amphitheatre where we had to assemble. I was lucky I had some schoolmates who lived near me and I volunteered to go with them.
After the total defence speech given by our school teacher and some survival skills taught by our seniors in the uniformed groups, we quickly move from the amphitheatre to the track and the seniors started running. After a few minutes, it was our turn to run and we went on to doing warm ups with the teachers.
After that, we went on to run 2.8 kilometres to end off the run. I was panting like mad when I finished my run and I dashed to the Milo van and gulped down two cups of the Milo and one bottle of water. There was a prize presentation for the 1st to 5th position and our class won quite a lot.
After the run I felt very tired and felt like I was going to collapse. I went home with heavy footsteps and decided to go for a quick bath and just lie on the bed to doze off. I slept at 9pm at night which was exceptionally early for me to sleep on a Friday night and the next morning I had a terrible whole-body ache.
Labels: cross country and total defence
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places that i have not gone and want to go
Y 3:53 AM
The place that i want to go is japan,tokyo. I have heard from people, watched commercials and saw newspaper reports. i actually got a chance to go when i was in primary six and i really looked forward to that day. but to my dismay, my parents did not allow me to go as they assumed i was too young to go overseas myself.
I waited every year for a school trip to japan but all i got was a trip to hong kong but i was glad i could go and was equally excited. I swore to myself since i was young that i would go to japan when i grow up and earned my first pay, to go at least once in my life.
I really wished that the next school trip can be going to japan and iwouldbethe first one to volunteer to go. To experience the comfortable springs and saunas and the delicious foodstuffs there.
Labels: places that i have not gone and want to go
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childhood memories and games
Y 1:17 AM
I was always very happy when it was school day in my childhood days because could play and learn with many as I do not have any siblings. I like play this game called snakes and ladder where you have a few objects in different colours and a dice. You throw the dice to determine how many steps you take.
Till you win the game, there are many tricks to either make you restart the game or go back a few steps. I liked this game very much so every time when it was play time in school I would be the first one to go to the teacher to ask her to help me to take the game board down from the top cupboard, I will always play with my best friends that time.
The next game which is also my favorite is the hop-scorch, in this game the floor must have a cross pattern which is made up of many squares and you take out whatever you have and put it on the square. For every time you jump, you cannot jump in the square with your item on and once you touch the outline, you will be disqualified from the game. After you finish jumping, you will need to throw the object that you took out to the second square. I like to play this game with many friends as it is very exciting. These were not the only childhood games that I liked.
I like bath time too. As we can play with water and there will be many toys in the bath tub at home. I will stay there for a long time till my mother scolds me. That’s all about my childhood.
Labels: childhood memories and games
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