Summary of bats

Friday (21/05/2010)

a) Bats' dung.
* "Dung" is the same as their waste discharge. As Qian Joe's mother owns a plant nursery, we asked if his plants needed any vitamins or fertilizer. He wasn't sure and that was his homework.
* Bats dung and almost all animals dungs are used as fertilizer for our plants, fruits and vegetables.
Class:......Yerrr.
Teacher: because they have fiber to help these plants grow healthily.
* Their dung is also used to make gunpowder. Bats also eat insects and mosquitoes. They also help "pollination" growth of fruit and flower plants.
* However, every year some of them die during their hibernation. Scientist don't know the exact answer although it is believe to be fungus growth on wings and ears. Its called "White Fungus". Kids then asked me about fungus. Yun Wen tried explaining to them.

b) Video clips.
* Before watching these, teh kids had to find out information about 4 things.
- "White nose" sickness.
- " Do people eat bats?"
- Bats sound.
- "Who is the predator or prey given bats and spiders".
* Well, we started with the battle between a normal spider and a bat. The bat didn't use its echolocation to detect the spiders' webs as it was too busy catching insects. It got stuck. Jun Hong said its weak bones are not strong enough. The spider quickly crawled to it and bit it a hundred times and spinned its silk around him to be cocoon. The spider ate the bat!
* The jungle native people made their own weapons and hunt animals including "Flying Fox" bats for food. They even had vegetables and fried juicy worms.......ahhhh! Well, I explained that those worms are safe to be eaten. Yun Xin's eyes were very big looking at me. In fact, some people breed worms as food.
* During echolocation, bats' screaming voice is above our normal hearing frequency. Thus, we can't hear at night when they hunt. However, sometimes they communicate with their troops and we can hear because that isn't echolocation.
* Finally, we watched and listened to our favourite and funny song "Echolocation". However, we edited it to the easier session so that kids can enjoy better.

c) What's next?
The kids were just too engrossed with all animals. Among: Jun Yu wanted to learn about spiders, Zheng Yuan "butterflies", Devin "insects", Jun Hong "wolves", Xing Tong "penguins", Jing Kai "elephants", Shi Jie "Polar bears" and Yun Wen "squirrels". Each kid was allowed to vote twice. Well, "Polar Bear" won and they request that we learn both Polar Bear and penguins together. Then, if we have time, we shall learn about squirrels.
* However, we shall be doing animal fruit decoration next week. I asked each kid to bring a fruit. It could be an apple or orange or whichever that is convenient to them.