I cannot believe I had a excursion right after a test! I had just ended my term 2 test and my teacher dragged the class for a science excursion. I also thought that it would be relaxing trip when we touched more on environment. In the end, I was wrong, SERIOUSLY WRONG! Our field trip was to MacRitchie reservoir to study more on ecology. It wasn't a long bus ride to MacRitchie reservoir though. :P
After we arrived, I received a handout and a booklet, written on the cover page was "learning trail at MacRitchie". It was then I know that this field trip is about a learning journey again and we have to take down notes and answer question in the booklet which means that it is no difference from a case study. But at least it would be much enriching and interacting as we get to do experiments and raise our views about the different "stations" we are going.
At the start, we are supposed to count how many population of plants are there under a tree slump and identify the Tembusu tree and count its population. I was thinking why are we learning such easy things that was already learnt in primary school, in the end, I realize that it is a recap on the definition of population. From there, we moved on to testing the ph, temperature and turbidity of the water. Our results are the water in the reservoir is quite clean, has a temperature of 32.4 degree Celsius and a ph of 5.6, which means that this is a healthy reservoir that has little impurities.
Slowly, we moved on studying the impacts of human to the reservoir. There are mainly 4 big activities occurring at MacRitchie reservoir. They are kayaking, fishing, nature walk and running/jogging. Both kayaking and fishing disrupt the ecosystem in the water which leads to a negative impact of the reservoir. However, nature walks and running/jogging depends. If the people are considerate enough to walk on the designated pathways and not on the grass, then, it would be a positive impact as no plants would be destroyed, but if it is the other way round, then it would be a negative impact. Thus, the overall rating of human impact in MacRitchie reservoir would be high, and it may bring about a serious effect due to our actions.
Continuing down the road, we moved on to meet our "friends" in the ecosystem. We are to visit the different habitats of different organism, be it on land or in water. There are in total of 20 organisms for us to identify and state its habitat and from these, we study the the biodiversity in MacRitchie reservoir and I feel that it is quite high, given there so many organisms living and interacting in such a small area of land.
In conclusion, this trip was rather interesting than I thought it would be as reading them in books is definitely a different feel when it comes to meeting all the organisms myself. Actually, there are so much things we could learn from mother nature, it is just that development is so fast that we do not have time to slow down and enjoy mother nature. Due to development, so many adverse effects has changed mother nature by a lot and all of us missed out on so many important parts of mother nature. If we do not start to conserve, all the greenery would be lost in the future!
Of course, we had a small rest before we head back to school. :)
After we arrived, I received a handout and a booklet, written on the cover page was "learning trail at MacRitchie". It was then I know that this field trip is about a learning journey again and we have to take down notes and answer question in the booklet which means that it is no difference from a case study. But at least it would be much enriching and interacting as we get to do experiments and raise our views about the different "stations" we are going.
At the start, we are supposed to count how many population of plants are there under a tree slump and identify the Tembusu tree and count its population. I was thinking why are we learning such easy things that was already learnt in primary school, in the end, I realize that it is a recap on the definition of population. From there, we moved on to testing the ph, temperature and turbidity of the water. Our results are the water in the reservoir is quite clean, has a temperature of 32.4 degree Celsius and a ph of 5.6, which means that this is a healthy reservoir that has little impurities.
Slowly, we moved on studying the impacts of human to the reservoir. There are mainly 4 big activities occurring at MacRitchie reservoir. They are kayaking, fishing, nature walk and running/jogging. Both kayaking and fishing disrupt the ecosystem in the water which leads to a negative impact of the reservoir. However, nature walks and running/jogging depends. If the people are considerate enough to walk on the designated pathways and not on the grass, then, it would be a positive impact as no plants would be destroyed, but if it is the other way round, then it would be a negative impact. Thus, the overall rating of human impact in MacRitchie reservoir would be high, and it may bring about a serious effect due to our actions.
Continuing down the road, we moved on to meet our "friends" in the ecosystem. We are to visit the different habitats of different organism, be it on land or in water. There are in total of 20 organisms for us to identify and state its habitat and from these, we study the the biodiversity in MacRitchie reservoir and I feel that it is quite high, given there so many organisms living and interacting in such a small area of land.
In conclusion, this trip was rather interesting than I thought it would be as reading them in books is definitely a different feel when it comes to meeting all the organisms myself. Actually, there are so much things we could learn from mother nature, it is just that development is so fast that we do not have time to slow down and enjoy mother nature. Due to development, so many adverse effects has changed mother nature by a lot and all of us missed out on so many important parts of mother nature. If we do not start to conserve, all the greenery would be lost in the future!
Of course, we had a small rest before we head back to school. :)