The Final Countdown

Hello, once again, ladies and gentlemen! The Minigurus return! As you can see, this will be our final post for our project and our last goodbye for the blogging community. See the connection with the title? 
 Do not cry or even feel sad fellow bloggers! We may be at our final stand to entertain and to inform you but alas! We shall prevail and entertain you and inform you as no one has ever seen before! But that time will come.

Anyhow, we are making another blog post about...BLOGS! Yes! A blog about a blog! But not just a regular blog but our blog! Let's head on! Shall we not?


We'd just like to give a short background about this post. This means.......FLASHBACK!
It was another average day at the classroom when T. Rye (the urban guru) announced that he had a "surprise" for us. Naturally, everyone got excited. But little did we know that the "surprise" he had in store was this blogging project! Didn't you ever wonder why we decided to make this blog? 
Ok, we're being rude. Please go on and enjoy our (sob) last (sob) post!

Khaim said that our fourth quarter final CEO is a blog site where we will put what happened during or after our activities in school/science class.
We prepared for it by discussing about what we will put on the blog.
We had a problem about what we will put and sometimes all of us are not able to discuss the blog. We resolved it by discussing more.
Khaim would do this CEO again because this was a fun CEO and because I want to get a perfect score.
But Khaim does not know how to improve this CEO because the CEO doesn't need any improvement.
Khaim would not change anything because it was already a good CEO.
Khaim learned that you should always be responsible about what you put in the blog and that you should always be prepared.

Also, Reisa said that the Fourth Quarter Final CEO was to make this educational blog so that we could share the different lessons we have learned in Science for everyone to see. We put different posts like a post about our field trip, etc. She said that this CEO was by groups.

Reisa prepared for it by doing her part of the posts, and revising other posts that her groupmates made by making them more creative. She also did her part on commenting and evaluating other blogs. Then, she encountered problems in the blogging project. One was the time pressure since 4 posts (all about the field trip) were due on one day. And that day was near exams. 

Another problem is that some of her groupmates did not help me in doing the blog. They did not do their part so she would have to do it sometimes. Other times, they would be late or not care at all. Since this is a group CEO, we would all get the same score, and I don't think it's fair, especially when one of us didn't cooperate. Even if, Reisa was given the chance to do this CEO again, she would do it. Even though Reisa encountered some tough problems, she had a great time reflecting on the times we had in Science. Reisa enjoyed making posts and posting reflections there. Reisa thinks this CEO can be further improved by putting longer deadlines for the posts and comments, so we can put meaningful posts and avoid cramming.  Reisa wouldn't change anything on how this CEO was handled because in the end, we would manage to complete the given requirements and tasks. She had fun too. The most important lesson that she has learned from this CEO is: to be creative. Since this is a CEO, it must be creative. She also learned to do posts early so we could all avoid cramming and publish better posts.

Next is Margot, and she said that in the 4th quarter CEO we made blogs where we put all that is happening in our science class and what we learn. Then, she had some problems like, some did not submit the blog early so they had to stay late to post and edit it but she had resolved it by contacting and communicating with each other. Margot would definitely do the CEO again because she had enjoyed it very much and she had learned the way of doing teamwork. Margot does not know how to make the CEO better as long as we all did out best, everything's okay. She'd never change anything about this CEO because it's already perfect. Margot learned that to not always depend on a groupmate or friend to do your work or else you'd get in real trouble.

Now we have Gobs! Let's hear what he has to say: Gobs said that the CEO is a project about making blogs about whatever we had done, like field trips. We prepared for it by making a profile in www.blogspot.com then, assigning people to comment, make the blogs and asking questions for each groupmate and then they reply back then we make the blog. Yes, Gobs has encountered problems like I had no schedule to do one blog because the final exams were almost near. He resolved it by my groupmates who helped me make the blog. Yes, he would do it again since he gets to use the internet most of the time. He thinks that the CEO should have longer deadlines. Also, Gobs thinks that it depends if the CEO has corrections or not. I learned that you should always focus on this particular type of CEO because it is sometimes hard to make it and you should not always depend on your groupmates to do things for you.

And next up is - oh, wait. We're already done. How time flies. But this means .... NO MORE POSTS?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! (sob uncontrollably)

2 days later......

A-hem. The Minigurus just wanted to say a last farewell to all you bloggers out there.

Thanks for reading our posts, guys, and we hope you leaned a lot from them. And, also, we enjoyed making these posts! We also hope you enjoyed reading them!

Even though we're gone for good, maybe we might return..... Who knows? Maybe a Walk through biodiversity part 2? 

And of course, the Minigurus couldn't have done this successful blogging project without T. Rye (the Urban Guru) ! Thanks so much Teacher for making a wonderful and fun project!

See you all next time! Hopefully.

- Minigurus 

Surp...RICE!

Surp...RICE! Another post brought to you by the Minigurus! 
Did you get "surpriced"?

Now, can you guess what this post is all about? It's the fourth site out of the five sites we visited in our field trip.
Ok, we'll give you a hint. Look at our title. If you get it, high five.
This post shall be all about our stay at the International Rice Research Institute or as we like to call it, IRRI. 
On the way to IRRI:
Khaim expected to learn how the people at IRRI help rice farmers here and abroad.
Margot was keen on learning how rice is useful to the world.
Reisa wanted to see how IRRI planted the rice with a more modern way.
And Gobs wanted to compare the IRRI scientists way of planting rice to the farmers'.


As soon as we arrived there, a video played showing the goals of IRRI.


We learned from the video that:
International Rice Research Institute is where scientists help our poor rice-planting farmers to grow more rice for the rice-consuming countries especially, in Asia. Farmers undergo a lot of difficulty in planting rice. Such as the weather. When it rains hard, the plants will drown. When there is drought, the plants will shrivel up and die.
So scientists at the IRRI help plant more rice to feed many rice-consuming countries. IRRI is not only found in the Philippines, but is also found in other countries.


Or at least, that's what we remember.
After that, we walked around a museum showing rice and products made from rice like: Rice crispies! YAY! 
We also saw traps for pests who ate the rice. Like rat traps. Well, Reisa's not too fond of rats.


Finally, Reisa took down notes on the only plant organism we saw: rice. 


Rice
Common Name: Rice
Scientific Name: Oryza sativa
Classification: Division Angiospermophyta


This organism is interesting since it feeds many countries around the world. Reisa also found the process of cooking rice interesting.


Rice is a producer. It's at the bottom of the food chain. It also has ecological relationships with other organisms. An example is: predation. Rice is the prey while the organisms that consume rice are the predators, like humans. Another example is competition. Rice competes with other rice nearby for resources like sunlight.


So, all in all, we learned that:
1. IRRI helps farmers in planting rice.
2. Rice is very important to many people around the world.
3. Weather can affect rice and affect the consumers of it.


Now we've just realized how important rice really is. And all this time, we've been eating it for years and not noticing its importance.
But, we've also realized something else. This is our fourth site of our field trip. The next, and last, site will be published next, fresh from the oven (or in this case, the computer). So if you want to see how this field trip ends, watch out for our last post EVER.........of the field trip.
See you soon!


-Minigurus

Journey to the Center of the... Garden!

Hey, everyone!

You must be familiar with the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth", right? That's where our title "Journey to the Center of the Garden" came from. So, naturally, this post is all about the Makiling Botanic Garden.

After going to IRRI, we moved on to the Makiling Botanic Garden (MBG), our last destination (sob). When we got there, most of our batchmates and classmates decided to play Bang Sack before we explored the MBG. 
But the Minigurus expected that we would learn a whole lot more about plants, just like at the Institute of Plant Breeding. We did learn to be extra careful when we were going down the garden because the cemented steps were wet. (it sure was a huge garden!). 
We kept hiking down to see what was in the center of the garden. But, sadly, when we got there, very anxious to see the center, all we saw were a few people gathered around trees and then stairs leading to the way up.
Dripping wet and tired, we all hit the bus searching for drinks and extra shirts.
Of course, when we got home, we were all tired but all of our expectations were met (thanks to our teacher!). The greatest lesson we all learned was to take good care of our biodiversity and to be very careful.  We will never forget this learning experience because this is so far the best field trip we've all ever been to, and we hope there's more, and we will also never forget this field trip because we all had so much fun especially bonding with our friends and teachers. Thanks again T.Rye, you're the best! :)

The Minigurus will never forget this fun field trip! There were fun times, and tiring experiences. But we had a good time. In fact, it was about seven or eight in the evening when we arrived back at school. We learned a lot from the trip, and hopefully, dear readers, you will too. 

Night At the Museum

A pig fetus.

After eating our snack (which consisted of corn and potatoes), we decided to rush back to the computer, go to blogspot.com and make this post. (Yeah, we really can't stay away from the computer.)

Now, first things first. The title of this post says Night At The Museum right? Well, we were inspired by the movie Night At the Museum. But, ironically, we went to the Museum of Natural History in the afternoon. 

A snake.

At the Museum of Natural History, we didn't just see animals. We also saw fungi! Yay, more organisms to write about and take down notes on.

If you're observant, then you must have noticed that this is the third place of our field trip. Only two more places to go!

Khaim expected that he would learn about the culture of the Philippines, probably because he saw the word history. Er, news flash, Khaim, the museum is about animals and fungi. 

Gobs wanted to see all of the organisms and take pictures or sketch them in his trip chart.

Reisa, like Gobs, wanted to take down notes of some fungi and sketch them.

And finally, Margot, she expected to learn about the history of plants and animals. 

Margot, Reisa and Gobs took down notes.

Here are a few organisms that we saw:

   1.     Name of Organism: Bats

           Scientific Name: Chiroptera
           Taxonomic Classification:
           Characteristics: they live in the tropics, the only   mammals that can fly

           Ecological Relationship:

                   Bats are predators. Meaning they feed on it's prey. They are also consumers meaning they do not make their own food.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.     Name of Organism: Bracket Fungi
         Scientific name: Lenzites
         Classification: Fungi
         Characteristics: They belong to Class Basidiomycetes
         Ecological Relationship: decomposers, consumers, symbiotic association with plant roots = mycorrhizae, symbiotic association with algae = lichens 

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                                                                                                                                                                    3.     Name of Organism: Puff Balls
         Scientific name: Calvatia
         Classification: Fungi
         Characteristics: They belong to Class Basidiomycetes
         Ecological Relationship: decomposers, consumers,

symbiotic association with plant roots = mycorrhizae, symbiotic association with algae = lichens 

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4.     Name of Organism: Javan Frogmouth

        Scientific Name: Batrachostomos pygmeus
        Classification: Animalia Class Aves
        Characteristics: They live in dense tangles of vines and bamboo
         Ecological Relationship: consumer, competition with other Javan frogmouths for resources, predation with its food

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5.     Name of Organism: Shiitake mushroom
        Scientific Name: Lentinus edodes
        Classification: Kingdom Fungi
        Characteristics: cold weather mushroom, they can only be grown in Baguio, they are medicinal
        Ecological Relationship: decomposer, consumer, symbiotic association with plant roots = mycorrhizae, symbiotic association with algae = lichens 

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6.      Name of Organism: Dinagat hairy-tailed cloud rat
         Scientific Name: Crateromys austrailis
         Classification: Kingdom Animalia
         Ecological Relationship: consumer, predation: the organism is the predator, the food is the prey, competition for resources with other hairy-tailed cloud rats

Well, this has been a long post! All that talk about museums makes us want to watch Night At The Museum 1 and 2 again!
But before we hit the TV, we wanted to thank you guys for reading our posts and (we hope) you can learn a lot from them. Hopefully our Walk Through Biodiversity can help you all.
Thanks to Khaim for the photos of the pig fetus and snake.
And stay tuned, for our next post from the field trip! Because it'll surely contain all you need to know on - oops, almost spoiled it. Well ... you'll find out.

Let's Save Our Plant-Net

Hey everyone! This is Part Two of our awesome field trip. 
You see, after we visited the cows, we headed over to the food of the cows: the plants or the producers. 
Now, in our previous post, Plants Vs. Zombies....without the Zombies, we learned from T. Rye a lot about plant divisions and plant classes, and we had to make a report about it. 
In this post, "Let's Save Our Plant-net", we'll be seeing plants in action, photosynthesizing, absorbing nutrients, who knows. 

We are going to be talking about the second site of our field trip. The Institute Of Plant Breeding (IPB)! 

What did we expect? Well, of course, The Minigurus expected to learn more about plants. We wanted to see the plants that T. Rye was talking about. We wanted to see the structure and characteristics of the plants, and identify which division or class it belongs to. So Khaim took down notes on specific types of plants and voila. 

1)
     Name of Organism: Gabriela

    Scientific Name: Gabriela

    Taxonomic Classification: Division Angiospermophyta

    Characteristics: 

We found this plant interesting because it was the first hybrid plant we learned about. We also chose this since it looked beautiful and appealing.

   Ecological Relationship: 

Since this organism can make it's own food it is a producer.
An ecological relationship with other organisms is: competition, when it's planted among other Gabrielas and they compete for natural resources like sunlight. Another ecological relationship is that when pollination occurs, the Gabriela provides food to the pollinator, and the plant also reproduces through the pollinator.

2) Name of Organism: Corn
    Scientific Name: Zea Mays
    Taxonomic Classification: Divsion Angiospermophyta


    Characteristics:
We found it very interesting because we love corn. We picked this plant because we love eating corn, and we wanted to find out how the people at the IPB plant this delicious dicot.


   Ecological Relationship:
Since this organism makes it's own food it is a producer. And like the Gabriela, it competes with other corns for natural resources. In a predator-prey relationship, corn is the prey and the animals that feed on it are the predators, like field rats.

3) Name of Organism: Sweet Potato
    Scientific Name: Ipomoea batatas
    Taxonomic Classification: Division Angiospermophyta


    Characteristics: We found this interesting because they are resistant to insects, they taste good, and they are dicots. And, come on. Who doesn't like potatoes? You can make 'em into fries! Right, Mr. Potatohead?


    Ecological Relationship:
Since this organism makes it's own food it is a producer. Plus it provides food for the predators who eat them, so it's in a predator-prey relationship. Competition with other potatoes, like the previous plants, is another relationship.

4) Name of Organism: Tomato
    Scientific Name: Lycopersicom esculantum
    Taxonomic Classification: Division Angiospermophyta 


    Characteristics:
This plant is very interesting because they are plum shaped, they are tolerant to foliage diseases, and they are red orange when ripe. Tomatoes also taste really good.


    Ecological Relationship: 
Since this organism makes it's own food it is a producer. Like all other plants, it competes with other tomato plants nearby for resources. It's also prey to us predators who eat them.

We were expecting to learn a lot from this site. What we did learn is:

1. The institute aims to improve plants,

2. We learned about different types of food crops, 

3. We learned about the effects of nature (like drought) on these plants.

4. And we learned about the new way of planting crops and plants.

Well, we got a sudden craving for potato chips and ketchup and corn on the cob.

Thanks for reading, guys, and wait for our new posts that'll be sure to come soon! We'll be back......right after we eat.
Oh yeah, we'd like to thank Khaim for the pictures of the plants, and Reisa for the picture of Mr. Potatohead.
And in case you're the type of person who just can't wait to see the next post, here's a hint. 
M-U-S-E-U-M.

Cow-a-bunga!

Hey everyone! Long time no see! 

Now, in our past posts we said a lot about our 3rd Quarter CEO, which was about animals, and the 4th Quarter CEO, which was about plants. In this post and the posts yet to come, we'll be combining animals AND plants together in our awesome field trip in Laguna!

We had a field trip because we needed to learn more about our current topics, which were the Kingdoms Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, etc. We also wanted to see the sites that we were visiting, and increase our knowledge. Since we had learned a lot from our lessons, we wanted to see the real thing: the real plants and animals our teacher, T. Rye (The Urban Guru) was talking about. 

We joined this field trip because we all thought it was going to be a fun and interesting field trip and it sure was! We all expected that we'd  learn a lot of things that we actually didn't know! Gobs expected to learn a lot in this field trip but then the fun outweighed it. Khaim expected to learn a lot more about plants. Margot expected to learn the same thing Khaim did, to learn a lot more about plants! We all felt really excited and we all couldn't wait for the fieldtrip since it was our first time to go to this place.

In our fieltrip, we went to five places. But in this post, we'll be talking about one place first, and that's the Dairy Training And Research Institute (DTRI). And you guessed it, this post'll be all about cows.


In the DTRI, we expected to see cows and learn some more about them. We also thought that we would be able to see how the people milk them and learn how to milk cows, and see how cow milk is processed and manufactured and made into fresh milk. We wanted to buy some dairy products too.


What we did learn is: 1. There are many different kinds of cows and different kinds of food that they eat, 2. We learned and saw how cow milk is manufactured, 3. We learned and saw how they milk cows properly, how the milk is processed and sold as fresh milk, and 4. There are many processes to collect milk and other dairy products from cows.


     We decided to get some information and take notes about the cows we saw. 
1. Name of organism:  Cow/Cattle

     Scientific name: Bos taurus 

     Taxonomic Classification: Mammalia


2. Characteristics

 We learned a lot about this organism like how people milk the cow, how they took good care of the cows, different kinds of cows, what they eat, and how cow milk is manufactured.

We chose this organism because it was so interesting and we learned a lot and we didn't know many facts about cows at first.


3. Ecological relationship
This organism is a herbivore, it only eats plants. And since it cannot make its own food, unlike producers, the cow is a consumer.
Sometimes, it also has competition with other cows for resources that they both need. Competition is not a symbiotic relationship.

 

                                 


Thanks for reading, guys, and wait for our new posts that'll be sure to come soon! When we take a short stroll down the Institue of Plant Breeding (our next site in the field trip), we'll be sure to list down everything that happened and what we learned.

And thanks to Khaim for the pictures.

Plants vs. Zombies....without the zombies

Hey everyone! We told you we'd be back! Let's see... what we've done so far is to make a post about us and another one about animals. How about we make a post regarding plants? Besides, this is a walk through biodiversity. 

Let's take a stroll down plant lane.

Speaking about plants, we remembered that not so long ago, we had to make a ceo about different kinds of plants. 

Our fourth quarter ceo was practically the same as the one in our third quarter (refer to the 2nd post), except of course, this ceo was all about plants. We still had to research on the characteristics, etymology, structure, etc. of the plant. We were also given a choice to work either individually, in a pair, or in a group of three. That was unlike the third quarter where everyone had to work individually.


Anyway, Reisa, who was working individually, had the topic Division Marchantiophyta. Khaim was also working individually and he got the topic Division Gnetophyta. Margot and Gobs, who were in a group with Donny, had to research on a class of Angiospermophyta: the dicots.

A Lunularia cruciata, the most popular thallose liverwort

Division Marchantiophyta was the most basic topic among all of the other reports. 
This division is commonly know as liverworts, and used to be among other bryophytes like mosses and hornworts. Liverworts are non-vascular plants that reproduce by using spores and can be divided into two kinds: leafy liverworts and thallose liverworts. They are called liverworts because some species look like tiny livers and it was believed to cure liver diseases in the 16th Century.
For Reisa, it was easier to prepare for this ceo, because she had already experienced basically the same ceo in the third quarter. She had learned from her mistakes and had been more careful in the format of the report. And Reisa already had a clue of what was going to happen, so it was much easier than the first time.
The advantages of working alone for Reisa was that she had no problem of waiting for work from another groupmate or partner. Another advantage was: the topic was shorter, since it was individual, less work needs to be done, unlike the groups that had a long and big topic.
Unfortunately, there are disadvantages too, for working alone. Reisa had to do all the work and could not split it with anyone else. And it was also hard because she was under time pressure, being the first reporter.
Reisa did not encounter too many problems while preparing for this ceo, except for one. She was nervous because she was the first reporter. So she resolved this by practicing a lot at home, and revising the report to make it better. Division Marchantiophyta was easy to research on so Reisa did not have any problems with finding information.
The most important thing that she learned about this ceo is to do your best and exert all your effort in reporting because you'll only have one shot at this.

Division Gnetophyta contains gymnosperms (naked seed plants). The word Gnetophyta comes from the Moluccan Malay word Gamemu that describes a small tree. They differ from other gymnosperms because they have vessel elements as in the flowering plants. They are vascular plants that reproduce by using cones. They have three subgroups/classes which are: Gnetales, Welwitschiales, and Ephedrales. They mostly live in the tropics and desert areas. An example is the Gnetum gnemon. They are used as food and medicinal herbs.

Gnetum gnemon, which belongs to Gnetophyta

Khaim encountered many problems in finding information regarding Plant Division Gnetophyta but through hard work and seemingly endless hours on the computer Khaim managed to find all the information and learning from his previous mistakes he got a higher score than the last project. But unfortunately he forgot to find the significance of his project and yet again lost the joy of getting a perfect score.

The advantages of working alone for Khaim is that he had no problem of waiting for work from another group mate or partner. Unfortunately, there are disadvantages for working alone. Khaim had to do all the work and could not split the work with anyone else. And since the topic he was assigned to is not a very popular topic, he had difficulty in finding the information regarding his topic.

And the most important lesson for Khaim is to put all the information needed and to not forget to put the significance of his topic.




And, finally, for Margot and Gobs' group, the Dicotyledones. 
They are called dicots because they have two cotyledons or embryonic leaves. They, unlike gymnosperms, are angiosperms (flowering plants). Dicots belong to a Division called Angiospermophyta. They reproduce with seeds and they are also vascular. 

Rhododendron maximum, or Great Laurel

The both of them found it easier to work on this ceo instead of the last one because they were in a group, and more work could be done in less time. The advantage of being in a group for Margot and Gobs was that they got to divide the stuff that were supposed to be researched on. As said before, they accomplished a lot of work in less time, because three people were working on it. They also got different and more ideas and suggestions for the ceo. The disadvantages of being in a group, however, was that there were more people to depend on. Sometimes, some groupmates won't do their work and leave the rest to the others. And that would lead to blaming and accusing each other.
Another disadvantage is that their group had to do more work since they are three, much work can be accomplished. But, still, their group had to do more work compared to the other individual or pair reporters.
The group of Margot and Gobs did encounter some problems, though. There were some parts where they had to cram and it was not a good idea because they always had to sleep late and wake up early to finish the ceo. In other words, they also had a problem with time. And since their topic was Class Dicotyledones, it had hundreds and hundreds of families so they only had to search on about 20 of them. They solved that problem by dividing the work equally and be faster with the work to avoid cramming. The most important thing they learned from the ceo: was to prepare earlier so that they wouldn't have to cram.


Alright, that's all for today!  Hope you enjoyed! Maybe next time, we'll have an adventure of not only animals, and not only plants, but the both of them combined in an awesome fieldtrip! Possibilities...... Oh well. Stay tuned! Remember to feed the fish!
And P.S. If you're wondering where we got our cool plant pics, just click on them, we've already linked it for you!