Project Adventure Reflection

Throughout our class period today, I feel as many of the task roles have showed throughout my group. I think for myself, the task roles that would best represent me would be the helper. I also feel as everyone in my group including myself also share the task role of the brainstormer/initiator. In class today I showed the task role of the helper, especially when I helped by collecting all of the needed equipment. For example, I went to the equipment area to collect dodgeball, hula hoops, jump ropes, and spots. By doing this, I quickened group movement by helping and doing things for my group. At the beginning, I helped collect all of the equipment, and helped place the right materials in the right area. Another situation where I showed the task role as the helper was when I helped collect all of the dodgeballs that were all scattered around the field, as well as the coloured spots. Though the whole group showed this task role all together, I showed the task role of being a brainstormer/initiator, as well as the rest of my group because once we were playing one round of our new game, we all knew that something was wrong and that we had to change something. Once I realised what we had done wrong, I made the suggestion of putting more dodgeballs, and putting them closer to the obstacles in order to make the game easier and more fair. One task role that I want to work on next class is the encourager, though our group mainly agreed on most of the suggestions, I feel as we lacked a bit of encouragement, so I would like to work on this factor a bit more. Overall, I feel as in today's class I showed the task roles of the helper, and a bit of the brainstormer/initiator.  

Science Burning Question Reflection

We have just recently started our astronomy unit, and was asked to come up with a burning question that interested not only you, but as well as your partners as well. Our burning question is Can there be other living forms in our galaxies' goldilocks zone, if so why are we not aware of them? This interested me because over the years I've always known about the galaxies, but weren't truly aware of how the galaxies work. Another thing that interested me is life forms being in the galaxy itself, I saw that there have been many debates over life forms in the galaxies but we never seemed to have the answer as of how or what type of life forms, so that really inspired us to do a bit more research. Something that we are still quite confused about relating to our burning question is whether there are actually living forms in our galaxies. We have done a little bit of research relating to it, but haven't gotten a clear answer. We've seen traces of fossils on one of the planets, we've seen that there might be a few other civilisations in the Milky Way. Other than that there hasn't been much of an answer as to whether there have been a trace of life forms. In order to get these answers we will continue to doing more research, and find a lab/lesson in order to help our understanding of the galaxies and it's life forms and in order to help the audience understand our topic more. We need to do a bit more research, and find more details that we could connect to each other in order to find the answer.

ESO. Wide Field Imager View of a Milky Way Look-alike NGC 6744. Digital image. Http://commons.wikimedia.org/. N.p., 1 June 2011. Web. 14 May 2015.

Always With The Questions

Now that I have finished my research and observation, I have a few questions and a few things that I still want to know about my animal. I think that one question that I have is why are white faced sakis more likely to show aggressive behaviours towards other species/primates instead of other males? As I researched, I found out that male white faced sakis don't have as much interaction with other males in the wild, due to the fact that they are usually found in family groupings. But when I was at the zoo, they were grouped as band, and didn't show aggressive behaviour toward each other, instead showed it to the lemurs. How has living in the wild, in a family grouping affected them when moving to the zoo or into captivity? Another question that I have about white faced sakis is how do they defend themselves, for example since they have canine teeth do they use their teeth? As I continued on in my research, I didn't really find much about how they actually fight. So my top two questions is why are white faced sakis more likely to show aggressive behaviours towards other species/primates? And the other questions is how do white faced sakis defend themselves while fighting? If money and time were not an issue, something that I would do to find out the answers is fly myself to northern & central South America and watch white faced sakis in the wild, instead of watching them in captivity. While in the wild, I would like to watch white faced sakis in their natural habitat and in a family grouping. I think that during my stay, I would also want to watch some male on male behaviours if there were any, or I would also like to see how white faced sakis fight. I think that with unlimited money I would like to see what their canines look like up close, since I wasn't able to see any pictures of them. I think that by going into the wild to watch their behaviours up close would really answer my questions. I think this because when other primates come into their territory, the dominate gender which is the male will most likely defend their territory and family. And if there were two dominate males, I would be able to see why they are not very likely to fight. All in all, I hope to find the answers to my questions very soon.

White Faced Saki Blog Post #1

Throughout my research on the White Faced Saki, I've learnt so many things about not only them, but also other primates. I think that one of the most interesting things that I've learnt about White Faced Sakis is that unlike other primates, they have non-prehensile tails. This shocked me the most because looking at their habitat which is neo-tropical rainforests, moist lowlands, and spend most of their times in the tree tops. I thought that with this type of habitat, White Faced Sakis would have a prehensile tail because they would be able to use it to grasp onto tree branches helping them travel. Instead they have a non-prehensile tail. I learnt that the reason why they have a non-prehensile tail is due to the fact that they use it to balance when on tree branches. If I were to put myself in Jane Goodall's shoes something that I would want to learn about the White Faced Saki they're impact on the rainforest, or their impact on the ecosystem. I think that I want to learn about this because every primate has a different effect on the rainforest, so I want to know how they effect it's environment. I think that if I were to be in her shoes, and were able to see them in the wild, up-close, I would want to see their behaviours  in real life. I think that I would want to see all their social behaviours and interactions and how they differ from other primates up-close.

Digital Life Pledge

I know I spend a lot of time on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Skype, etc. I constantly check it from time to time through out my day. Due to this, I've constantly procrastinated my homework or I will be doing my homework at one time, then stop and scroll through my phone. I tend to not talk face to face with my parents as much now.

I pledge to not go on social media when the time is not right, for example I will only go on social media when I am taking a break from homework or during my free time. I pledge to stop looking at my phone during dinner, and to stop constantly looking at my phone for hours.

Darwin's Theory Game Results

What helped the species that survived 1 million years, had many adaptations that was a mix of all the different species. It had many more adaptations that helped them live through the harshest environments and situations. When the species were going through the winter, you had to make sure you had animals that had a lot of fur in order to stay warm. When the species were living in an environment where fruits or their food sources were at higher distances or heights, you had to make sure your species had a long neck that is long enough in order to reach the food. When the species were going through a situation where predators were invading their homes, you had to make sure that they had long enough legs to run away and stripes in order to hide from them. In order to live one million years, you had to pick the species with a mix of all of those adaptations. With the stripes, long legs, long necks, and fur this species is able to live longer through the harshest environments and are able to live long enough to reproduce.

My Favourite Animal's Adaptations

For today's science homework we were asked to write a blog post about our favourite animal's adaptations and how those adaptations help this animal survive in their environment. Well, my favourite animal is the penguin, and it has many different physical, structural adaptations that help them be successful in their environment. One adaptation that some of the penguin species have are bare patches around their eyes that play as heat windows. Theres areas have no feathers which allows excess heat to escape. These patches become very pink once the penguin is warm. These patches around their eyes help these penguins be successful in their environment because penguins are usually found in colder areas, or when found in warmer areas they use these patches around their eyes to keep them cooled down. Another adaptation is penguins have almond-shaped glands beneath the skin above their eyes which helps them filter out the excess salt from the ocean. The salt drips down their beak, then the penguins make a sneeze-like sound, and then are able to shake the salt off. This adaptation helps them in their environment because penguins usually find their food source in the ocean, eating krill and other sea creatures, penguins tend to spend a lot time in the ocean. With these glands this helps them get rid of the salts. The third interesting adaptation that penguins have that they have a downy under portion of feathers that traps a layer of air against their skin. This layer of air is then warmed by body heat, their feathers overlap and form a barrier, keeping water away from the skin. This layer of skin, helps penguins stay warm from the harshest of winters. This helps them be successful in their environment, because as said before penguins are usually found in colder areas, and by having a layer of blubber and this downy under portion of feathers that traps air helps them stay warm. The fourth adaptation is their webbed feet. A penguins' webbed feet enable penguins to shoot through the water at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. Another thing that the penguin's webbed feet does is they help the penguin steer it's way through the water. The position of their feet on the lower part of the body aids in both steering and hydrodynamics. Penguins also use their webbed feet to release heat. This adaptation helps them be successful in their environment because as said before, penguins spend a lot of time in the water and swimming in the ocean, their webbed feet helps them guide themselves in the right directions. This adaptation also helps them because as said before, penguins tend to be found in colder areas and since their webbed feet provide heat, it helps them stay warm. The last interesting adaptation is that penguins have black backs and white bellies, this pattern of colours is called countershading and helps the penguins camouflage them when it is in the water. And as said before, penguins spend most of their time in the ocean, having these colour is an effective form of protection. Countershading also helps the penguins hunt with more success. This adaptation helps the penguins be more successful in their environment because since this countershading camouflages them when they are in the water, they are able to hide from predators and are able to protect themselves. This also helps them safely and effectively hunt their food underwater. Overall, penguins have many adaptations that help them be successful in their environments.