School Projects (Post PSLE) -_-||

My school took us to the Singapore Zoological Gardens and we were supposed to come up with a documentary based on a selected animal. My group just did the animal (in this case, it was the Orangutan) which we had the most pictures of. What I have here is just the slideshow and I will provide the script for the documentary later in this post (we have uploaded it on youtube but it was made private, sorry! -_-|| ) Hope you enjoy the presentation and may the information provided here come to good use for you!

Slide 1:

Slide 2:

Slide 3:

Slide 4:

Slide 5: 

Dark brown eyes help protect their eyes from sunlight as darker eye colors have more pigmentation to absorb sunlight before damaging Ultra-Violet light can penetrate to the back of the eyes. 

Slide 6:

Their coloration is well adapted for forests. Sunlight that filters through the canopy shines down on vegetation, which absorbs reddish- orange light of the color spectrum, before reaching the forest floor. Thus when sunlight reaches the ground, most of these light is filtered out, making it tough to detect these colors in the forest. Light absorption enables them to virtually disappear, blending into their environment.

Slide 7:

Slide 8:

Slide 9: 

They eat a wide variety of food, thus, if one of their sources of food runs out, they still have other sources of food to rely on.  

Slide 10: 

Do you know the differences between Bornean and Sumatran Orangutans?

Slide 11: 

Arboreal means living in trees. Male Orangutans would go down to the forest floor occasionally to clear their waste, as they are larger in size than the females and thus have better chances of surviving if attacked.

Slide 12: 

The Orangutans need YOUR help! Do YOUR best to save them!

Slide 13:

Thank you for your support!

Animal Xploration-Issue 5

Perishing Polar Icecaps and Polar Bears 

I am a Polar Bear. I live in the Arctic, and the Polar Bear capital of the world- the town of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada.

ABOUT ME:

I'm Pete Polar Bear. I have a white fur coat, no, actually not white. It's transparent with black fur underneath. My white transparent fur reflects heat while the black fur absorbs heat so my body can keep warm in the fr-free-freezing Arctic. I have a thick coat of fur that traps air very well. As you science geeks know, air is an insulator a poor conductor of heat (don't use insulator. Insulator means that it totally 100% cannot conduct heat. However, everything, even you and I can conduct heat, so the word 'insulator' in this context cannot be used. 'Poor conductor' would be better. BUT! Remember that you should only use this when you are Singaporean.) Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah. So because air is a poor conductor of heat, heat from my body cannot be conducted the the c-c-cold surroundings quickly, so I can keep warm for a longer period of time.

Here's a simple diagram to explain this process:

              Heat              Heat
MY BODY-------->AIR-------->SURROUNDINGS (ARCTIC)

Fun Facts about me:
Have you ever had a toothache? Well, I did. And it sure was terrible. Worse that your human kinda toothache. You MUST remember: Like humans, Polar Bears feel pain too, have emotions and can be afraid. We're not perfect, you know. When we have toothaches, we are in a darn pretty bad mood. You'll never know how painful it is. Never. But I'm telling ya, never touch or disturb a Polar Bear with a toothache! You'll regret if you ever did!

How am I different from my cousins, like the Grizzly Bear, or the Sun Bear etc.? Did you ever wonder? Your answer: The colour of my fur coat. Yes, indeed. Other bears' fur coats are usually brown/black but my fur coat is white/cream coloured. Other than that? Any other differences? Well, I'm different in one BIG way. I am a marine mammal. Like seals and walruses (my favourite meal), we Polar Bears spend most of our lives on the ocean. You see, our scientific name, Ursus Maritimus, means "Sea Bear", so we obviously live in the SEA!

Here's a step-by-step guide of how to get a delicious meal of seals:

1. Find a nice little hole in the ice all for yourself
2. Lie flat on the icy flat ground
3. Keep still! Hold your breath!
4. Wait till a seal's head bobs up from the water (Poor seal has done so in order to get some air!)
5. Lunge forward. Bare your teeth and grab the seal's head
6. Drag it onto the ice
7. Tear up all the meat with your paws
8. Ta Da! Enough to fill your tummy!
9. (Not related to hunting) Remember to clean up after that. I have to. Mom wouldn't be pleased seeing bloody reddish paws. 

Actually, I eat other stuff, like Caribou or Walruses. But in my personal opinion, seal meat is my favourite. Seal meat is the best! Oh yeah. And here's another tip should you ever go hunting for seals: To conceal yourself well among the icy Arctic background, cup your white furry paw over your black nose. Oops! I almost forgot, you're a human, not a bear. But that's a bonus hunting tip for you.

Family moments:
When I was born, my Dad wasn't around. I never met him. Ever. My mom took care of 4 of us, 2 girls and 2 boys. That's me (Pete), Patty (my eldest sister), Penny (my youngest sister) and Peter (my younger brother). Usually, female Polar Bears give birth to twins. But for us, we are quadruplets!

Haha... That's Peter and me fooling around

AND...

This is Mom, Patty and Penny

How did Mom take care of us? How were we able to survive? Here's how Mom did it: She dug a den.

A simple picture to show how the den looked like:

It sure was warm inside the den. :)

We Polar Bears definitely are serious swimmers. In fact, we can swim distances of more than 100 MILES! A HUNDRED MILES! Can you beat that?! I have swum with Mom during our weekly swimming practices through the freezing waters of Wager Bay.

I do hope to see you soon in the Arctic, or maybe when you travel to Churchill in Manitoba, Canada (Polar Bear Capital of the world), visit me! I'll be utterly glad to see you. I wish I can see all of you before everything of me disappears. You see, the Arctic is disappearing. the place which I can call home is disappearing. We, Polar Bears are on thin ice. We are on the verge of extinction, disappearing off the face of the Earth forever due to global warming. Now, only YOU can help us. 

• STOP releasing so much CO2 and other horrid gases into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It traps heat in the atmosphere and melts the Arctic.
• STOP wasting electricity. Electricity may run out too in the foreseeable future.
• And many more.......

Do YOUR part to save the Earth today. Otherwise, you might lose your home too.

Smilies,

Pete Polar Bear
 

PS: Remember to save our precious Earth. And don't forget me! Hope to see y'all soon! 

If lost, please send mail to:

The Arctic

Den Number 104

Pete Polar Bear

Thank you!

Information about Polar Bears taken from:

National Geographic book- Face to face with Polar Bears

by Norbert Rosing (Photographer) & Elizabeth Carney

Cool videos

Hi everyone! I'm uploading a bunch of youtube videos... Hope ya like them.

Wings Of Life

Floral Bliss

Fungi

The beauty of pollination

Earth Hour- In 2 weeks' time

The Earth Hour Logo

Woohoo! Earth Hour's just round the corner! Here's the Youtube video- Earth Hour's official video this year

Remember the WWF (World Wildlife Funds)? Yeah, it was the organisation which launched the Earth Hour project, encouraging everyone round the world to switch off the lights just for one hour.

Guess how Earth Hour all started out?

Well, it all started in 2007, in a single city in Australia, Sydney, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights. And following Sydney's lead in the year 2008, many other cities around the world adopted the event. 


In February, Earth Hour launched its 2012 campaign, “I Will If You Will”, with the intention of engaging its growing global community to go beyond the hour. Using a dedicated YouTube platform, IWIYW asks Earth Hour's digital community to inspire people from all corners of the globe to take sustainability actions, and to share their commitment to the environment with their own social media networks. [This bit was taken from Wikipedia] 



So this year,  March 31 [saturday], 2012 from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, turn off all non-essential lights everywhere. If you are going out, maybe to your friends' house or something, don't think you aren't playing a role on this special day- you are already playing a big role when you turn off the lights and fans at home! But of course, it's not only during these 60 minutes of Earth Hour that you do your part in saving the Earth- in fact, if you conserve electricity everyday, isn't it that every single day of your life is the special-est Earth Hour from you to Mother Earth? 


So count down to Earth Hour from now...