prologue
tagboard
affiliates
twitter
credits
Day 4 @ 6.6.10
02062010
Theme: Science In Nature
a) Wildlife Park and Aboriginal Heritage Walk
The cave paintings consisting of handprints were orange in colour and the same stuff is used to do up their aboriginal face painting. The natural paint is derived from an orange-coloured rock which is grinded against another rock with the addition of water. When added with an emu’s egg white, the paint can stay on the rock for millions of years. Since different geological location consists of different rocks, different tribes possess different coloured rocks. Hence, trading of rocks occurred between tribes in order to create more colourful paintings.
The guide named Andy brought us on a tour around the park and showed us the various plant species. One of the first few was the flower of a plant of which the name I have forgotten. It looks like this;
When ripe, you can run your fingers down the columns of the spiky thingy and taste the nectar. Alternatively, you can make a cordial by stirring it in water. A scientific application of this plant is how two of the flowers can be stuck together. This forms fine pores between the area of connection. The joined flowers can be placed at holes where water flows through and it will help to filter dirt and soil particles producing clean drinkable water with a sweet taste.
There is another tree of which the name I have also forgotten but I’m not wrong, it is the ___ Red Blood Tree. It’s sap is blood red in colour and it is useful for almost anything. For example, if you have cuts, you can rub it on your cut to stop the pain and prevent infection. If you have a toothache, you can also rub the sap on your gums and if you have a sore throat, you can add water and gargle the solution the tree sap has antiseptic properties and it serves many purposes for the aboriginal people. In addition, the animals such as the kangaroos and the Koalas have a thick fur in order to survive the cold and this is a form of adaptation to the climate.
b) Botanical Gardens
This trip educated us on how plants go through various adaptations on order to survive in different climates that they live in. these adaptations are greatly influenced by biotic and abiotic factors for example, in the tropics where rainfalls are high and temperatures are humid, plants usually have a thick cuticle to allow excess water to drip off the drip tip. This prevents the water from obscuring the vital stomata for photosynthesis. Some plants also have climbers to enable them to climb up host trees in order to obtain maximum sunlight. In deserts however, where rainfall are scarce, plants such as cactuses had their leaves reduced to spikes to reduce water loss.
All these physical adaptations came about due to cell differentiation and besides biological science; it is also a form of geographical science.
▲ back to the top | comment | 0 comment(s)
