“How are natural systems connected and what role do we play?”
Last Friday the Year 3 neighbourhood had an excursion to the Australian Native Garden at Royal Park. We went there to understand more about connections in nature. We had four workshops looking at mammals, macroinvertebrates, birds and ‘deep dive’ (how we connect to nature). Below are some of our reflections about how this excursion helped us understand more about our inquiry into natural systems.
Felix: At Royal Park we learnt about wombats. We learnt that if foxes sneak up in the wombat’s burrow, the fox bites their bottom and the wombat lifts up its back and shatters the fox’s skull.
Seb: The fox has a nasty disease and can spread it to wombats.
Tucker: Foxes were brought here by Europeans. This means that native animals have had to adapt to new species. I also learnt that wombats have backwards-facing pouches so that when they’re digging holes the dirt doesn’t get into their pouch and harm the babies.
Alex: The wombats find rocks and logs and poop square poops on them to mark their territory. If another wombat comes looking for a home, they smell it and know it’s someone else’s territory.
Isabella: It’s square so that it doesn’t fall off the log or rock.
Ivy Belle: It’s a kind of communication.
Jack B: When the ranger got out the Boobook owl, all the Noisy Miner Birds around started evacuating and going crazy, tweeting really loudly to communicate with each other that a predator is around.
Edie: I learnt that if an animal loses its prey it will probably die as well. It needs the food and if it doesn’t have it, it will starve. If there’s not that many left of its prey in the area there won’t be food for the predators. They can’t try to eat other things because it would be like humans eating grass- it might be poisonous.
Zoe: In the workshop with Kieran we were looking at different types of bird beaks and what food they can collect. When they’re flying, they poop the seeds and that plants trees and we use the trees to help us breathe clean air and for food.
River: There was a special type of bird that does this.
Max: One species of kite starts fires by dropping embers. I’m not sure if this is good for the environment.
There is much more to explore.
The Year 3