3rd Class – Projects, creativity & more!

My project on elephants by Amy Stynes

Elephants are the world’s largest land animal. Male elephants can reach 3m tall and weigh between 4,000-7,500kg. Asian elephants are slightly smaller, reaching 2.7m tall and weighing 3,000-6,000kg. Elephants spend 12 to 18 hours eating grass, plants and fruit every single day. You can tell a lot about an elephant by looking at their tusks.Elephant’s tusks never stop growing, so enormous tusks can be a sign of an old elephant. Both male and female African elephants grow them. A tusk-less adult elephant is likely to be a female Asian elephant. For centuries it has been accepted that there have been two Identified species of elephants living today African elephants and Asian elephants. However in 2001 scientific data identified that African elephants are actually two different species, the African savannah elephants and the African forest elephants.

The primary differences with their physical confirmation is the African forest elephant is more slender, slightly smaller with straighter smaller tusks and their ears are more rounded. African savannah elephants are found in savannah zones in 37 countries south of the Sahara desert. The Asian elephant has four different subspecies Sri LanKan,Indion, Sumatran and Malays. Sri LanKan elephants are tuskless. Indian elephants tend to be slender with larger ears. Be lighter skinned. Sumutarn elephants are slightly stocker and Malay elephants are a little smaller in stature. There are reports of pigmy elephants in Borneo but little is know about them due to the donse forest and inaccessible regions where they live. Elephants from Burma are not classified a sub species but they tend to have a lot of hair and darker complexions. Being extremely sensitive creatures, elephants have been known to display behaviour patterns similar to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Elephants communicate with each one another using sound, touch and sent. Their hearing is excellent they can hear a trumpeting call from 5 miles away. And they use a wide range of sound to talk to each other- including those which humans who are not able to hear. Elephants have 6 sets of molar teeth, upon which they depend for survival. When the last set is lost, the animal is unable to eat and eventually dies of starvation.

Male elephants leave the herd between the ages of 12 and 15, usually live alone although may sometimes form small groups with other males. Elephants are able to recognise themselves using mirrors. Such displays of self-recognition indicates a very high level of awareness, and is sometimes witch only humans, apes, cetaceans and magpies are otherwise known to do .Elephants are important for other animals within the environment too. They dig waterholes when river beds are dry that other animals can use as a water source, and their large footprints can create deep holes for water for water to collect in. the wide trails that they carve through the vegetation as they move through the landscape can also act as fire breakers and water runs off, and makes it easier for humans and other animals to access the forest and bush.

THE END

Elephants are in danger

Well done Amy! Great work

Facts about the Ocean by Aoife Kinsella

It might be nice to go to the Ocean on a sunny day but did you know that the most common plant in the Ocean is Kelp. Also algae, sea grass and phytoplankton . They are also microscopic plants.

There are over 1million species of plants and animals that have been discovered in the Ocean. Scientists say there may be as many as 9million species we haven’t found yet.

We should keep our plastic straws and cups to ourselves as when the plastic goes into the water it releases a toxic chemical that are killing animals.

The salt in the Ocean comes from the rocks on land. The rain falls on the land contains some dissolved carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the rain water to be slightly acidic due to carbonic acid.

The Ocean wasn’t always salty. It became salty 3.8 billion years ago.