I couldn't stop laughing, no matter how hard I tired. Okay, this probably sounds confusing, so let me explain a little about the day. It all started when we watched different clips from Nature Cat, Wild Kratts, and Jeff Corwin. We were then tasked with creating our own short clip of a nature documentary to present to the class. We decided to compare and contrast sloths to koalas... I had to be a koala, and making that sound was hard because I kept laughing while we were presenting. You'll understand why if you look up a video of what a koala sounds like. Here's the script we had for our documentary:
Alex: Hey everyone! Today we're gonna be talking about koalas and sloths.
Lauren: *makes koala noise while hopping onto kalie*
Kalie: Do you guys know anything about koalas or sloths already?
Blaine: I know that Koalas are from Australia!
Kalie: Yeah! Koalas are endemic to the continent of Australia whereas sloths are found in South America.
Alex: How about you Jessica, do you know anything about sloths?
Emma: *makes sloth noise*
Jessica: Uhhhh... Yeah! I know that they are slow and have families.
Kalie: That’s right! Sloths are placental mammals, and are divided into several families, none of which is Phascolarctidae. Koalas are marsupials, and the only member of the family Phascolarctidae.
Alex: Anyone know what koalas eat?
Blaine: No.
Lauren: *koala noise*
Kalie: How about sloths?
Emma: *makes sloth noise*
Jessica: No.
Alex: Well, koalas live almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves, whereas sloths eat a variety of plant parts.
Kalie: That's right! And sloths mainly consume leaves. Sloths are generalized as folivores or herbivores; they will eat leaves, buds, twigs, fruits and, occasionally, insects and rodents.
Lauren: *make koala noise*
Jessica: Okay so now that we learned all of this cool stuff, can we go get some lunch
We didn't perform our skits until the end of the day, because we went on a field trip to the Narrows beforehand. We went down to the river, Little Miami, and were taught about water chemistry and biology, macroinvertebrates (such as crayfish), and we performed pH and temperature tests on samples of the river water. While collecting samples, we also caught baby fish. They were extremely small and swam really fast - it was hard to catch them in the cup.
Once we finished water testing, we went on a small hike with a naturalist on the trail next to the river. We were taught how to correctly use binoculars, what types of plants were bad to touch, and which ones were okay. We then stopped by a tree that had a bird nest in it, and the naturalist used her phone to make the bird call for her, the bird, to come out of hiding so we could see it.
After our hike we sat at the picnic tables and ate lunch as a big group. We then walked through the woods up to the wildlife center to look at a bunch of different live animals they had on display. We also learned about how some of the canals in rivers were man-made, which meant the water would flow there, but not stay - it would create a larger canal (eroding away at the river banks). The naturalist brought out one of the snakes and we all got to pet it, some even hold it for a few minutes.
Catching fish was probably my favorite part of the day. I've always wanted to go fishing, and even catching them in a cup and looking at them made me happy. They were so small and fast swimming, it was crazy.
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