Rara's Blog

A Beavers Tail

By Tyra

This is the story of how the beaver got its flat tail. A long time ago in the woods of Alaska there was an animal maker named Aki. He could talk to the animals and he was good friends with all of the animals.

One day Aki was going to make a new creature, it was called a beaver. First he made the head, then the body; finally it was time for the tail, but just as he started to make the tail one of Aki’s oldest friends, Chickadee, came up to Aki and chirped, “How are you today Aki? What new creature are you making today?”

“I am making a new creature that is called a beaver,” Aki replied “I must concentrate hard on making him.” The chickadee ignored that comment, “I have been flying all afternoon and…” Aki got upset because his friend was ignoring him when he was trying to make another animal, “Chickadee, I cannot talk right now, go away!” Aki exclaimed.

“As I was saying, I have been flying all afternoon trying to find somebody to talk to and when I saw you I was so happy and I flew down so fast and then…” chickadee chirped. Aki was so mad, his face was beet red. He had made the beavers tail perfect but then Aki got mad and screamed “GO AWAY!!!!!” He slammed the palms of his hands hard on the table and accidently squished the beaver’s tail flat. “LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!!!!!” hollered Aki.

“I’m so sorry Aki; I just wanted to talk to you.” Chickadee squeaked. Chickadee knew that he was going to be in trouble. “Now this creature has a flat tail because of you!” Aki grumbled, “Oh well, I better make him into a real animal now.” Then Aki used some of his magic to make the beaver become a real animal. “The beaver is born, Chickadee, now do you want to help me carry this baby beaver into the river where he belongs?” Aki questioned.

“Yes Aki, I would like to help you.” Chickadee squawked. A couple minutes later, at the pond, the baby beaver woke up and squeaked, “Hello. Where am I?”

OEC

By Tyra

It was a crisp fall day in the year 2017 at the Outdoor Education Center [OEC].  The scent of pine trees was being carried by the wind.  Armies of Mosquitos were buzzing around.   Frogs were hip-hopping all over the place and moose were resting and drinking water in the mossy bogs of the OEC.  It was like the beautiful, crunchy leaves were dancing in the sky.  It was all so peaceful.  Then, the next week there was a problem.

Suddenly hunters, fisherman, schools and even just random people decided that they would use the OEC bogs as their garbage drop off!  Then, one day, nice Ranger Michelle came to me and my best friend Zoey and sniffled, “The OEC is not going to be available anymore because of the trash!” We were so sad.  So Zoey and I got ready to pick up some trash.  We got strong, black trash bags and clear, plastic gloves.  We started the clean-up clean right away.  “Let’s get to it!” shouted Zoey.

On our way to the bogs we saw that many animals had passed away, others had moved away altogether because of the pollution. The land was littered with junk like old cars, pop cans, plastic grocery bags, candy wrappers and more. “This place looks exactly like the dump!” I exclaimed.

“Look at how the pollution oozed through the moss,” Zoey sniffled, “How did this happen?” Zoey mumbled.

“The reason the animals are dying is because when the animals drank the water from the bog they were actually drinking pollution that seeped through the moss.  They were also dying because they would get tangled in plastic bags.” I explained to Zoey. “They were trying to eat the candy wrappers then they would choke.” Zoey started to silently cry.

“Why would anybody do this? It was such a beautiful place?!” Zoey whimpered “It used to look so pretty and now it looks so … so … gross!”   After we were done for the day, we walked to the dump with the trash that we had picked up.

We worked hard for two long months and finally we got all the trash picked up. “Good job,” Zoey exclaimed, “We did a good thing.”  A few weeks later we saw that lots of the animals came back.  The birds built their nests and the wolves, moose, bears and other animals had their young there and the OEC was opened back up and nobody littered at the Outdoor Education Center ever again.

Simulation #2

Our goal: To have all the organisms survive for over one hundred years in the same environment. Our simulation contained two herbivores, one omnivore and three plants.

First we chose the omnivore we wanted to put in our environment then we decided which plants we wanted the organisms eat.

Next we put the bigger number of organisms with the plants that thrived most and the organisms with a smaller number ate the plant that didn’t thrive as much. Then we observed that the plants died so we changed the organisms that ate them.

Then we successfully made a stable environment and all organisms survived for the one hundred years. Then we recorded it in our science books.

Finally we created a graph in Microsoft Excel. Here are three things we noticed about our organisms based on the data: On year one plant A thrived, on year one hundred plant C thrived and on year one plant A and B didn’t thrive.

Simulation #1

Our Goal: To have all organisms survive in their environment for over one hundred years. Our simulation contained two herbivores and two plants.

First we chose the organisms to place in our environment; we decided which plants the herbivores ate. We put the bigger number of herbivores with the plant that thrived more; the organisms that didn’t thrive much ate the plant that didn’t thrive as much.

Then we successfully created a stable environment and all the organisms survived for the one hundred years. Then we recorded our data in our science journal. Finally we created graphs in Microsoft Excel