Oh My Godwit!

Today Annabelle from the NZ Department of Conservation visited us.

She talked to us about the adaptations of sea birds and showed us 2 taxidermied 

Little Blue penguins.

A bird Annabelle was particularly passionate about was the amazing Godwit. She told us about the incredible journeys these birds make each year.

Godwits spend the summer in New Zealand, fattening up on Pipis, worms and other delicacies in preparation for their 11,000km journey from New Zealand to Alaska (Alaska is where the Godwits breed) with one stopover on the way. Before they leave, these birds have doubled their body weight so that they are strong enough to last them through their long, arduous journey. 

Very sadly, the numbers of Godwits are decreasing so we as human beings, need to look after the tidal areas where Godwits feed. We can do this by:

1. Keeping dogs on leashes.

2. Allowing the Godwits to be safe by not frightening them and keeping our distance.

3. Thinking about pollution and what we are doing to protect our planet such as reusing and recycling.

Watch this interesting video...

Week 10 Performance

We have an arts exhibition/performance in Week 10. We are working on creating our own special interpretive dance to a medley of interesting music! 

We are learning about the elements of dance and how to use them.

So far, we have focused on using different levels and space.

Look at these amazing dance groups below. 

How do they use levels, space, their body and their energy?

How do they work together?

Adaptations

Since there are over 250,000 species of marine animals, we decided to focus on fish when finding out about adaptations. Each species has unique features which enable it  to survive in a particular environment.

We began with doing a variety of activities to help us discover the interesting adaptations of Midnight Zone fish and Sunlit Zone fish as they live in contrasting environments.

This is what we've discovered so far...