The Great Dugong

The dugong is a marine organism that has similar looks as a manatee. Dugongs live in a pack so they have more of a chance of catching food, keeping predators away, and living. A pack of dugongs can vary from two individuals, to 200 individuals. Dugongs like their peace and when they are disturbed, the organism will swim away frantically from the source. Dugongs are a semi-nomadic species. That means that they will migrate occasionally That can also means that they will migrate many miles to find a specific seagrass bed. Seagrass is their primary feeding source, and if they run out of it at one specific territory, they will move on to claim their next territory. During mating season the male dugongs defend an area from other male dugongs. This is a courtship behavior that the males display to impress the females of the species. The males are very aggressive and compete violently against each other to mate with the females. (By Julian)

eBook project

Right now, our sixth grade science class is starting a new project tied to the unit of animal behavior, and it will be very fun to do independently and as a group. All sixth graders have had to blindly pick a popsicle stick, which has a different animal name on it, including the coati, koala, and rattlesnake. If we did not show any interest in our animal, we got to trade with other classmates, or choose from a different pile of popsicle sticks that had not been picked. The animal that I picked was the coati, a small raccoon shaped animal found all over South America. If you didn’t know, ring tailed coatis are very quick tree climbers and even build their nests in trees. Being able to climb trees quickly is helpful when evading a predator, or trying to catch prey, or build shelter. Every sixth grader has recently been researching facts about their animal, specifically facts that answer different questions on a blue sheet that Lisa gave out as a guideline on Monday. We have started taking notes on our animals, and are beginning to form the base of each page of our ebook. By the end of the project after lots of research and trial and error, we want to have created a thorough ebook on the iPad. This project should be interesting, full of hard work, and fun! If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. (By Aidan)

Animal Behavior

In the past two weeks the Waynflete sixth graders have been learning about animal behavior. In class we watched 23 different animal behavior clips, and we had to fill out a sheet about the different behaviors of the animals like the bower bird and the bower a kind of showcase.  Now we are learning about pill bugs and sow bugs. We did a lab about the behaviors of the pill and/or the sow bug we drew a picture of the isopod under a microscope. It was cool looking at the features you never see normally on the isopod outdoors. I thought that this couple of weeks was amazing but that's just my opinion. (By Eli)

ISOPODS IN SCIENCE

In our animal behavior unit, we are studying different animal behaviors (mostly courtship) and the difference between instinctive behavior and learned behaviors. For example, the pill bug/sow bug is not a very sophisticated organism, so most if not all of its behaviors are instinctive. In class, we looked under the microscope at pill bugs and sow bugs, also known as roly-polies. Then we looked at them without a microscope, and took note of which behaviors the pill bug/sow bug does in a certain time frame. In this project we would have a partner, and one of us would time it and the other one would observe the isopod and take notes on its behaviors. My partner and I looked at pill bugs, and the third pill bug we got barely moved at all. (By John)

Horse Behavior

Have you ever wondered why a horse runs from loud noises like a clap? I'll tell you why. This is instinctive behavior. A horse and all other animals have instinctive and learned behaviors. The reason a horse runs from a loud noise is because it is afraid what ever made the noise will eat it. For example a horse named Tilli at my barn is afraid of cows. The first time she saw the cow she balked and would not move.  So I had to let her stand there and get used to it. A horse can also be afraid of being alone. Another horse at my barn Ryder is afraid of being alone, so for my show I was unable to warm him up. If a horse is afraid don't bother them. There are two different genders of horses, stallions and mares. Stallions are the leader of a herd in the wild and one mare is second in command. The stallions are usually very protective and will fight. But the domestic  horses are more calm and gentle. What is the behavior difference between domestic and feral horses? Click here to see the article I read. (by Amber)

Animal behavior unit

Now we've switched from our cell unit to the animal behavior unit. So far we have learned about instinctive and learned behavior. Instinctive and learned behaviors help the animal survive and reproduce. Instinctive behavior is a skill that an animal is born with, that they can do perfectly the first time, like a spider building a web. Each breed of animals has their own unique features to help them do what they need to do to survive, like how fish have gills to breathe underwater, or how an eagle has good eyesight so it can catch it's prey. Learned behavior is learned over time, with lots of practice. For instance, we don't know how to play the piano right when we're born, but we can, with practice as we get older. We've also learned about imprinting, which is an animal's ability to recognize and follow the first thing they see when they're born (which is usually their mother) the next time they see it. (By Helen)