The Rabbit Bean Population

We did a activity pretending rabbits were beans. We had 2 different colour beans so white beans are female, and black beans are male. Each year each pair a rabbits give birth to two rabbits. So here is our recording made into differnt graphs going up to 10 years.





























So you can see that each year the population doubles.

Counting turtles Lab

This lab was about population of turtles and marking them to see if the population has increased or decreased. But then we also we had to search about our own country and see populations of a certain animal there. So I am from Australia and I chose a koala.

Here's some information about the koala's population from 2009-2010

- The koala foundation reports say that thousands of koalas are missing from the country’s eucalyptus trees

- The koala bear populations of the animals are between 20 percent and 50 percent lower than previous estimates

- The recently found out that no more than 80,000 koalas remain in the wild in Australia

- The number of population now is around 48,000

- Foundation is asking the government to make the koala a vulnerable species, so this might give then more protection

- They have also lost lots of their habitat

- Foundation says around 4,000 koalas are killed by cars and dogs each year

So as you can see here the population has decreased.

Bibliography

"Koala Population Plummets in Australia." Top 10 Endangered Species & Wild Animal Facts — All About Wildlife. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. .

ENERGY FROM PANDA POOP!?!

When you think of a Panda you think of this cute little cuddly black and white bear eating bamboo and living in China. But when Ashli Brown thinks of pandas the first image that comes to her head is their poop. She is thinking that their poop can be a new way of turning grass into fuel. Bamboo makes up most of the pandas diet. Plants and grass absorb energy from the sun, so Brown is trying to find a way how to use this energy. Plants are renewable energy source so we are able to replace them, this is called biomass. But most energy we use is from non-renewable sources such as coal, oil, and natural gases this is called fossil fuels. Burning the biomass could be one way of getting energy, but the poop teaches us about breaking it down. It is what the panda's stomach does to get more energy. So anything in their stomachs can be broken down well. Every 14 months they have counted the poop from the pandas who live at the zoo which is Ya ya and Le le. They have found 12 different species of bacteria even some they have never found in pandas. Brown is going to use one type of refuse to break down another refuse. Refuse is another word for waste. Her team is trying to figure out the chemicals that help break down the biomass, once they all do that they can turn grass and other plants into energy fuels.

To find out about this article I went to Science news for kids. Because I wanted to go on this website. And what I found so interesting about this article is that the main thing is that we can find another way to have renewable energy. I have heard about renewable wind, water and more things about renewable energy but never from grasses and other plants. And another interesting thing is how they can figure out so much about how to do this by looking at a panda's digestive section and their poop. So I think it is good how scientist have noticed this because if we start to do and find out more ways to make renewable energy then maybe one day we won't have to use non-renewable, plus it is harder to find now. So now when I think of panda's I not only think about how cute they are I will think about how their poop and the way the digest their food can help the world.

By Stephen Ornes / September 14, 2011

"An Energy Lesson from Panda Poop | Science News for Kids." Science News for Kids | Publication of the Society for Science & the Public. Web. 09 Nov. 2011. .