Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Zoo Visit v 1.0

Hi! We are the Zoo Explorers from XX primary school!

Our group consists 5 people and they are Candice Koh, Peter Lim, Ivan Lok and Mary Teo! It is 10am here at the Singapore zoo and we are on a embarking on a learning journey organised by our school. We are very excited about the trip and are eager to meet the animals from the singapore zoo. Our learning journey begins here!


Group Photo: Photobucket
Here is a recording of us introducing ourselves! Photobucket
The map of the Singapore Zoo can be found here.

Shortly after entering the zoo at 10am, we visited the polar bear exhibit.We spent about 15 minutes learning and gazing at the animals. The polar bears were large and majestic. We learnt that they are mammals. Polar bears are carnivorous and eat meat, they live for about 30 years. Polar bears are usually around 2.5m tall and weigh around 250kg.Their natural habitat is in the north pole. The polar bears were playful and enjoy wrestling and rolling around. We love the polar bears because they are curious and like to learn new things.

View the quiz we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of the polar bears we have taken here.

At around 10:20am, we went to cat country. We spent 30 minutes here. There are many cats around here. We saw cheetahs, tigers, jaguars, lions and many more. They were fierce and scary. However, we had fun taking photographs and learning more about them.

Here is a quiz that we received.
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Check out the photos of the different cats that we have taken here.

After visiting cat country, we went on to Reptile Gardens at 11am. Here we saw many different reptiles such as snakes, lizards and crocodiles. They were slimy and we had fun feeling and watching them. We learnt about the different kind of snakes and their natural behaviours.We spent 20 minutes admiring the reptiles before we continued our journey.

View the quiz we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of the reptiles we have taken here.

Soon, we continued our way to Rainforest Kidzworld at 11:30am where we spent 15 minutes. We sat on the rides and enjoyed the great view that the rainforest has to offer. Here, our teacher gave us some questions that we answered.
View the quiz we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of us on the various rides available here.

It was not long before we felt a little tired, so we took a break at the Orang Utan Rest Area at 11:55am where we ate the lunches that we brought while taking photographs of the funny orang utans that were there as well. while we ate, we completed a food pyramid that our teacher provided.
View the pyramid we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of the snacks we brought along for the trip here.

After a enjoyable snack, we visited butterfly walk at 12:20pm. There were many beautiful butterflies flying around. A zoo keeper showed us the many different butterflies and taught us interesting things about them. Here we also interviewed a tourist to find out how much he has enjoyed his visit at the Singapore zoo.


The tourist whom we interviewed goes by the name of Mr Takeda Iwasaki. He comes from Japan. He finds the Malaysian Tapir to be the most interesting as they are smart and are able to remove pests from their bodies by bathing themselves in the mud. Mr Iwasaki finds the Elephant Show to be the most interesting as he feels that it is amazing to see such large animals perform. He hopes that he would be able to see a cafe that allows people to dine alongside animals on his next visit.


Here is a photo that we have taken of Mr Iwasaki.
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Here is the recording of the interview.Photobucket

Soon after that at 1:00pm, we went to "Elephants of Asia" where we watched a performance entitled "Elephants At Work And Play" put up by the elephants and their trainers of the zoo.
This is our review of the show!


The group feels that the elephant show was very well done and the elephants were cute and lovable. We feel that the elephants are very smart as they are able to perform many incredible stunts and that the trainers have indeed trained them well.

The show is about the different types of elephants found in Asia. These elephants performed many tricks such as picking up heavy objects with their trunks, walking across narrow obstacles as well as spraying water at each other.The most interesting part of the show is the part when the elephant sprayed water at the trainers when they asked them to do things that they do not like. It was very funny and the audience laughed and applauded loudly.

We highly recommend the show to everyone as we feel that such a performance is uncommon and extremely entertaining for the family. Our rating for this performance would be "Excellant"!



After the show at 1:30pm, we continued our journey to Australian Outback. Where we spent 20 minutes looking at the animals from Australia. There were possums, koalas, kangeroos and many more! Our teacher challenged us to make a haiku which is a poem about a animal found here that we like.
This is the animal that our group has chosen!
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Listen to our Haiku here! Photobucket



After our visit to the Australia Outback at 2:00pm, we proceeded to the Rainforest Courtyard where our teacher gave us some mathematical sums to complete. We took 15 minutes to finish the task!
Here is a copy of the worksheet that our teacher provided!

Our final destination for the day is the gift shop where we bought ourselves some lovely sovenirs from the Singapore Zoo! We arrived at the gift shop at 2:25pm. There were many things on sale such as stuffed animals, funny hats, T-shirts and paper weights! While we were here, we were also given another question to complete which we took 15 minutes.
Here is a the question that our teacher provided!

While we went around the zoo, watching the animals and taking photographs, we also learnt many things about the different kinds of animals!
Our teacher provided us with a list of animals which we have to identify if they are hoofed or not. We are also required to take photographs of these animals as proof that we have encountered them.
View the list of animals here.
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Check out the photos of the animals that we have taken here.

On top of that we found 4 flightless birds in the Singapore Zoo. It was very interesting to learn about these birds that cannot fly and how they survive in the wild.
View the worksheet we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of the birds that we have taken here.

Apart from these new discoveries, we also learnt about the different names of the same animal. They are called scientific names! One example we learnt about is the "panthera tigris" which is the white tiger and the polar bear is also known as "Ursus maritimus"!
View the worksheet we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of these animals that we have learnt the scientific names of here.

In addition to that, while we were observing the animals in the Singapore Zoo, we learn that they can be sorted into different groups based on the different characteristics of each animal. Some categories are "Birds", "Mammals" or "Insects". We had fun sorting as many animals as we can into these groups! and making extra notes about them in these separate groups.
View the worksheet we are provided with here.
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Check out the photos of the animals that we have classified into groups here.

Our Reflection of the trip

On the whole, our group the "Zoo Explorers" have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on this trip. We have learnt many new things about our animal friends, be it their eating habits, their natural habitats and their natural behaviours. The animal shows shown us that animals are also higly capable creatures who are able to perform stunts that us human beings cannot.

The many activities that we are given has also provided us with alot of extra insight and have taught us that learning and doing problems can also be plenty of fun. We learnt to work as a team by completing the tasks quickly, through the whole trip we have also bonded more closely with one another.

1 improvement to the trip could be that extra time could be given for us to work with the i-phones while we also visit the stations as we are new to this gadget and may not be able to use it effectively.

In conclusion, our group has greatly benefited from this Learning Journey and we look forward to going on a next one!

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