Don the eel man

Kia Ora everyone

Today Don an eel scientist came to visit us to talk about eels. he told us loads of information. 

• females are bigger than males
• when they eat they grab the skin then they start spinning
• the oldest eel 112 years old ,wow!
• they can  swim backwards and forwards
• long fin eels are cannibals
• eels have their nostrils on top of their mouth
• eels eat small birds like ducklings
• females lay up to 70- 20,000 eggs!
• they swallow their food whole                                                                   

That was a very interesting chat with him, I took lots of information from him and I loved finding out things and getting them confirmed.

                                                  The biggest eel people have ever found 

South sudan

Salam Alaikum everyone 

Today we had some missionaries Janet & Phil come and visit us to talk about South Sudan. They live in the capital of South Sudan: Juba. They told us lots of thing and showed us lots of photos.

Some  cool facts they told us were:

• they have 65 languages 
• they have no power 
• they have no sewage
• a 100 pound note = 30 cents in NZ money!
• they think that girls don't need to go to school
• kids have to shave their hair when they go to school
• When the barber shaved their hair they use a razor blade!
• In south Sudan they are not used to white people so children are scared of us!

South Sudanese tribes have different marks on their skin, to get these when they are babies they have to cut their skin and when it's healed they keep on cutting until they're scars.

Their language is not written down so they have no alphabet. Janet made up a alphabet for them and she is translating the bible into Arabic the language they speak.

It is very dangerous to drive in South Sudan because of the war that is going on. so they have to fly in planes to travel. The war started in 2013 and then died it down. It got worse in 2016.

It was a very interesting chat and I can't wait to learn more about South Sudan!

   South Sudanese money

LEARNZ

Hello everybody

This morning we did a video chat with some scientist about our water. Some of things we discussed were:

• Our groundwater will never run out because of the water-cycle
• Fossil water 
• Turning saltwater to freshwater 
• Plants and soil never go into water
• Rakaia has a limit on how much water you take if you take too much you get fined

Fossil water is ancient water that is stored a long, long way under the ground, a bit  like an aquifer. Though when you drill into the Fossil water it doesn't refill.

 Yes, turning saltwater into freshwater is possible, in some countries where there isn't much water there are machines that filter out the salt water. This is called desalination.

This was a very interesting chat and I took lots of information from it.

 

Te Tuna Taone Eel trip.

Kia ora everyone!

 Te Tuna Taone Eel Trip

On Thursday we walked down to Centennial Park to have a look at the eels in Heathcote River. We did loads of activities, I was in group 3 with my friends Molly, Amelia and Eilish.

 The first activity we did was making art out of nature. My friends and I made an eel out of grass and dandelions we named it Phoebe.

 Next we had a habitat walk. In the habitat walk we drew the river's strengths like vegetation, deep pools, rocks and hiding places.

 After that we had stormwater story and we mixed lots of thing that were bad for the river into a container, it didn't look very good at the end of it. 

Next we saw eels that had been caught in a pike net they felt slimy, we also played snakes and ladders we didn't get to finish it though, we also felt whitebait in a bucket. 

The last activity was the water bug activity, we picked little bugs with spoon we caught loads of little stick bugs and a blood worm then we put them in a tray and we looked at them through a magnifying glass. 

Our eel trip was amazing and I can't wait to try some of that stuff out myself!

                                                                                             This is our nature eel, Phoebe