Today was the day of our mini research project! The end goal of the camp was to have the students design a final research project all on their own (coming up with the question, designing methodology, collecting and analyzing data, and even writing a paper). For this project, I did the first to steps for them. They had two questions they were supposed to investigate: (1) Is there a relationship between the length and density of thorns and of leaves? (2) How effective are thorns at preventing herbivory?
The first question was a fairly simple one to design an effective methodology for. Measure and count the leaves, measure and count the thorns... For the second question I used a scientifically approved methodology - have students bite off leaves and see the biomass they can "eat" in 1 minute from trees with various thorn densities.
Video credit: Jordan-Laine Calder
The experiment was a success and although we didn't get any significant results really, we had a quick lesson on analyzing data with statistics and the kids all seemed to really enjoy seeing their own hands-on work up on the screen. That's the beauty of hands-on science. Only ever reading about other people doing science makes it seem like this far-off unreachable thing, only performed by "scientists" with PhDs in their fancy labs. We need to teach kids that science can be (and is) performed by anyone who has an interest. Anyone who wants to answer a question! That they can answer that question and teach themselves instead of waiting for someone else to teach them. Jordan shared this great Ted Talk with me: Ted Talk
If you like getting kids into science, you should definitely watch it.
Day 5 - July 10
WE ARE OFF TO KRUGER WHOOHOOO!!! The kids were definitely ready at this point to get into the park. Hearing and learning about the ecosystem and all the animals in it was not enough. Time to see it with our own eyes, experience it hands on (are you sensing a theme yet?). We entered the park through Orpen Gate (up north) and drove down to Skukuza through the park. This turns a 2-hour boring trip (if you drive on highways outside the park) into a 6-hour game drive! The kids got to ride with Philly, who is just the man when it comes to knowledge of Kruger's plants and animals. Driving behind the GDV (game drive vehicle), I honestly got a bit jealous, remembering my first game drive in the park and how amazing it was to see every new thing! Luckily we still got to take advantage of Philly's excellent eyesight by driving behind their car and stopping as well whenever they saw anything. These kids were incredibly lucky... they saw the big five (elephant, rhino, buffalo, leopard, and lion) PLUS Honey Badgers. Jeez louise, we could have just sent them home then and they probably would have been happy.
The lesson to take away from this day was that even though we didn't really accomplish anything (other than traveling from one place to the next), the kids probably learned more from just watching animals and getting excited about nature than from any of the lectures I had given them about ecology and biodiversity. Again, experience is the best teacher.
Photo Credit: Thato Brilliant Mogoane
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