Site guide 101

Dear readers.

It is once again time to start with something new and it's called site guide.
This includes game drives, bush walks and knowing a whole lot when it comes to animals,plants and insects.

We started the week off by having an ice-breaker to describe yourself in the letters of your name. This enabled us to get to know each other better and it gave Salaminah, our mentor, a chance to see what type of people we are.
We set up a few of our own ground rules as well because we know what goes wrong in class and what does not work. A few of these rules are:

• Respect each other
• Do what is expected of you
• Always be punctual
• Dress appropriately

We had to get started as soon as possible with our prescribed work and so we started with mammals. Things like their habitat,gestation period, behavior and interesting facts about them. The most difficult part was thinking of a story about each animal that you make up to keep the guests interested because we thought of things like the leopard was jealous of the dalmatian and the lion watched Grease to much thats why he has a permanently teased mane!
We also started to get to know the different orders that there are when explaining the taxonomy of an animal. I have a rhyme to remember the taxonomy outlay:

• Ratse     : Rykdom
• Fanus     : Filum
• Kan       : Klas
• Ons        :Orde
• Familie   : Familie
• Gaan      :Genus
• Se          : Spesie

We think of ways to make it fun and then remember better. Now for a bit of did you know  0(",)0

1. The Impala releases a scent from the glands of their heels when escaping from predators. This enables them to stay together when they are threatened.
2. The duiker is the only antelope that eats meat and plants.
3. When a male Nyala is juvenile it looks like a female. This is because the male only allows females in the heard and would kick it out if he knew.
4. The warthog has warts on the face and that is where the name comes from. But the female has 2 warts on her face and the male has 4. These warts are used for defense and as fat storage.
5. The blesbok has a black face when juvenile and it becomes white when it ages. This is because the baby blesbok  needs the heat and therefor the dark face.
6. All zebras have a coat unique like their own fingerprint.

And that's just to name a few! It's really interesting and very knowledgeable.

Until we read again!