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Australia Adventure

In the Trees

Thursday, May 28, 2009


(This blog post was a group effort. All the Colorado students collaborated to create the post.)

There was a spiral road that never seemed to end. After three hours on the bus, one of our teachers even got sick. (And no – it was not Mrs. Jensen.) On the way to the rainforest we got to see our first wild koalas in the trees along side the road.

After arriving at Otway Fly, it was fun getting our hands dirty as we each planted two trees, one Myrtle Beech and one Mountain Ash.

The Mountain Ash tree is the second largest tree in the world. It can grow up to 150 meters in height. You can tell how old a Mountain Ash tree is by measuring its diameter at about chest high. For every centimeter it is one year old.

The moss grows on the south side of the trees because it avoids the sunlight. This was surprising to us because back home it grows on the north side of trees.

Some of the trees in the rainforest are shaped like a boomerang because another tree has blocked its sunlight. It curves to find the sunlight. This movement of the tree was interesting. The aborigines would make their own tools out of trees, mollusk and kangaroo tail.

We also learned that there are lots of threats to the rainforest including people cutting trees. In just one minute about 10 regular-sized football fields of Amazon rain forest is cut down. Realizing how much forest this actually is, it seems that it could all be destroyed in a matter of years. Without our rainforest, we would have less oxygen and water…both are necessary for life. Yesterday we learned about many endangered frogs. They are endangered because their habitat is being destroyed, due to deforestation.

We walked up the Otway Fly, which was 47 meters high. We got to see a great view of the rainforest below. The rainforest gets 2 meters of rainfall a year. While in the rain forest we got to drink some of the fresh creek water. We were surprised at how clean this water was.

Our second day in Australia was successful. Although it was raining most of our time in the “rainforest” we were still able to soak up some great information along with all the water.

(Mrs. Jensen has more detailed posts on her Everyday in a Photo Blog - http://everydayinaphoto.blogspot.com/)

2 comments:

stacykasse said...

Sounds like you are all having a wonderful time. May I ask...what is the age of the youngest person on your trip?
Cheers!
Stacy Kasse

Susan said...

We have enjoyed your tweets & blogs. Today was entertaining during the autopsy and I have to agree with Mrs. McGuire, I think Duggan will become a Dr.
Ashlee's bug eating was remarkable!
I have learned a great deal from all of you as you have traveled around the Melbourne area. Have fun on the next leg of journey to Alice Springs. Hope to catch a Skype video.
Mrs. Jensen's mom

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