Wildlife Explorers for the day

Hi Class 4,

Thought you might to hear about the day children from the Eco-Aride Club and Baie Ste Anne Primary School came out to Aride. Thanks to one of the travel companies out here, Masons, for the use of their catamaran, The Indiana, 23 children and their teachers came out to spend a day on the island.

With Aride being one of the islands a little more remote and further away from Praslin, school trips can sometimes be a little harder to initiate, which makes them very special when the children do get the opportunity.

It was a busy day and great excitement for the children as they arrived on the Aride mooring after an hour and half boat trip on The Indiana. They were greeted by the Aride boat and staff and their adventure on the island began, they became wildlife explorers for the day. Full of excitement and expectation the children had a whole day to see and enjoy Aride. They were able to experience the sights and sounds and to get close to wildlife, some of which they had never seen before. Wrights skinks and ghost grabs scurried around their feet, they got eye to eye with geckos that skulked on the trees along the trails, fairy ferns flew around their heads and tropic birds patiently looked up at their eager faces as they peered down at them. All their senses came in to play, as we smelt the fruits of the Indian mulberry tree, and listened to the sounds of the sooty terns and lesser noddys. We learnt about food chains, food webs, ecosystems, seed dispersal and much, much more.

There was also time for play, the banyan tree provided a swing, the beach and the sea a chance to cool down and exhaust any spare energy. We all had a super time and learnt lots and the children are now keen to write and tell you all about it and to share with you their exciting and very different day on Aride.

Members of Eco-Aride Club

Hi Class 4,
Great to hear that you got the letters from the Eco-Aride Club at Grand Anse Primary, so you can now put faces to names, these are the members of the club:


Adrian and Arianna










Arnold and Brian








Darrius and Dinan













Emmanuel B and Emmanuel M









Fabrina and Marius










Naomie and Natifah












Recca and Stephie

Vennessa

Aride Eco-Club

Sally,
Your letters arrived today. It was so exciting. Our Eco-Club will write back tomorrow.
Nina

Lifecycles

Thanks Sally.
We had a very interesting lesson yesterday about seed dispersal. It was great to be able to learn about the seeds on Aride. It made our lesson much more exciting.
Nina

The coconuts float and can travel great distances, especially as the seed has it's own water supply.

Once the coconut has been washed up on the beach crest which is the area at the top of the beach it is ablt to sprout and grow roots.

The Pisonia seeds are really sticky, with lots of little fingers which hang onto things. You can see here it has stuck to a piece of grass and even a woodlice

Indian Mulberry Tree that produces fruits that ferment and become alcoholic.

The life cycle of some of Aride’s plants

The Coconut Palm
The coconut palm produces large seeds in the form of coconuts, which drop to the ground and either grow where they fall or due to their design they are able to travel for miles. Coconuts float, which means they can travel for long distances on the sea. To feed the seed whilst on its journey it has a supply of water inside, which is very sweet and what we know as coconut water. As soon as the nut reaches land and gets washed up on the shore, the seed is ready to grow.









Many coconuts are washed up on the shores here at Aride, and they can be seen sprouting along the top of the beach – in the area known as the beach crest.


The Pisonia Tree
The pisonnia tree is the main tree on Aride Island; it grows right across the island as both trees and bushes.









It is very clever how it seeds it self, it has lovely small white flowers which produce bullet shaped seeds which have a number of small fingers. These fingers are very sticky and they stick to everything that comes into contact with them, including our feet, as a result they can get moved great distances enabling the tree to spread.

The Fruit Bat Tree
This tree produces fruits that the fruit bat finds irresistible, they are about the size of lemons and one of the main foods that the fruit bat eats. The seeds are held inside the fruit and so when the bats produce dropping the seeds get spread right across the island. The fruit bats on Aride can fly for miles, sometime over to the main island of Praslin, over 6 miles away, so they will be transporting the seeds of Aride’s fruit bat tree without even realising it!

The Indian Mulberry Tree
Like the fruits of the fruit bat tree the Indian Mulberry fruits can transported by birds eating the seeds inside the fruit and spreading them in their droppings. The Indian Mulberry fruits are very desirable and a favourite of many of the birds here on Aride. The fruits ferment and become alcoholic and actually make the birds drunk.

We often see birds, particularly pigeons, drunk on the mulberry fruits, they stagger around unable to stand up or fly, so we put them in a quite place to sober up and to recover from their hangovers!!

lifecycles of plants

Sally,
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. It is all so interesting.
We are now studying the lifecylces of plants and I thought it might be interesting if you could show us some pictures of different plants and tell us about the seeds for each plant and how the seeds are dispersed.
Any information about the lifecycle of plants on the island would be great.
Nina