Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Inquiry week 5


On a fabulous day rooms 13 and 15 went to the awesome Boundary stream.Our guides, Pete and Mark, were from DOC, which is short for department of conservation. They showed us the traps that they set to catch worth-less pests. They are all designed to kill.
So then we set off on a bush walk to hear native birds. About five minutes into the walk we saw and heard a Kereru- a wood pigeon! He looked beautiful. Then we came to the pepperwood plant which is as spicy as chili and onions.
"WOW"I whispered to myself,"This tree is as big as any thing I've ever seen! It was over 800 years old and still going!!!
"Look what I found"someone annouced.A dead stoat.Everyone crowded it then we had to move on.Then we came across a weta house with the cave weta in it and did you know that they are native to our amazing country.
Chase

Monday, May 16, 2011

TERM 2 INQUIRY: Pest or Pests

Room 13 has been learning about pests and pets. We watched a DVD called Invaders in Paradise. New Zealand was a lovely land full of birds. The birds had no predators. There were no mammals except bats.
When the "invaders" came the forest became quiet. The first "invader" in paradise was the kiore, which was the Polynesian rat. When the European people came they brought another "invader" which was the black ship rat. We learned about what these rat pests did to native birds, and that was why the forest became quiet.
The human invaders burnt down the trees and about one third of the trees were burnt. The invaders ate the moa, the bird that was nearly the same hight as two people.
By Junelle and TeRangi