[Readiscover07_rap] Rap Point 2 from Year 4 at Penrith PS

Wed Aug 15 15:30:51 EST 2007

Hello again rappers!

We enjoyed looking at Rachel Tonkins' book, "Leaf litter", again this week.

The natural environment:
* is made up of things that people haven't made
* is something that was here before we were, such as trees
* grows and dies, grows and dies, grows and dies
* has no concrete or houses
* has creatures that were always here.

The students at our school often have to be reminded to pick up their litter in the playground, but "Leaf litter" is about the natural litter of a forest environment. The forest floor's leaf litter contains nothing artificial or man-made (or a better word is "people-made").

In our school's gardens, we have bark chips which are people-made from natural materials. The bark chips do the same job as natural leaf litter in the bush. Some leaves had fallen on top of the bark chips, too. We noticed that some very healthy weeds are growing under trees that have lost their leaves for winter. They grow away from the areas where people walk a lot, and where other plants cannot grow easily. Weeds steal water from trees.

In our school's leaf litter, Group A found:
1. a decomposing bird feather
2. sticks and a banksia bud
3. small bits of people-made rubbish
4. a decomposing leaf that looked like it was a leaf's skeleton
5. a small dead slater.

In our school's leaf litter, Group B found:
1. a see-through leaf, with its veins showing
2. a piece of stone that had pieces of quartz and maybe a fossil in it
3. natural seed pods and a long eucalyptus gum leaf that had tiny bumps on it
4. a volcanic rock with pieces of mica in it (from land fill?)
5. natural twigs and decomposing bark.

On National Tree Day, our school improved the environment of our garden areas by planting shrubs, native grasses and waratahs. We need to be more careful about the tiny pieces of people-made rubbish that ends up mixed with the natural leaf litter. People-made litter can take a long time to decompose.

Mr McLean showed us two types of foam packing material. One white piece takes a long time to decompose. (There was packing foam in our leaf litter!) The other pale brown one looks almost the same but is made from potatoes. It even tastes and smells like potatoes, and will decompose much quicker. People should try to use the foam that decomposes easily.

>From Year 4 rappers at Penrith PS

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