In the words of the great Elmer Fudd- 'That's all, folks!'

     Oh, how quickly time flies! This whole project has been filled with fun and enough experience to handle future culminating activities not unlike this. We will surely miss posting and blogging about the adventures we have and raving about the trips we had that make us feel like we're at one with the Earth. Anyways, this last post will be about our fourth quarter CEO. Now, if you have not read our previous posts about what CEO's or Creative Expansive Outputs are, CEO's are what we call our school projects. Through them we express our creativity and also expand our minds to come up with brilliant outputs that suit the given topics. Now, you may be wondering what our fourth quarter CEO is. Dear blog-reader, you are looking at it.

     Yes, our fourth quarter CEO was this blog. We were asked to post about our adventures and share our insights and feelings on what we have been busy with the past few months. When our teacher first told us about it, we thought 'Oh man, this is going to be a lot of work!' But, as it turned out, we actually enjoyed it very much. Of course, every group has its problems. Our problem was that one of our group mates forgot to turn in her part of the post. We solved this problem by bending a little further in order to have material to submit. One little hurdle did not prevent us from trying to do our best on every post. All in all, we had a blast conducting this project. We had F-U-N. If we are ever asked to do this all over again, we would take that chance and rack our brains to provide you readers with quality posts. We found nothing wrong on how this CEO was handled and in fact, we think our teacher is brilliant for coming up with something like this. It really brought us together. Thank you for reading this and for allowing us to share with you our priceless adventures.We love you!

'Goodbyes are not forever, goodbyes are not the end.

They simply mean we'll miss you until we meet again.'

Nature-walking: Makiling Botanical Garden Style!

     Hey readers! You've probably read our last 4 posts, which is good, because now, we are down to our last location. Yes, this will be the end of the rave about the field trip (how sad). Anyways, our last location was the Makiling Botanical Garden, a place that is really beautiful, and would've been more enjoyable to stroll down through if the steps weren't wet and slippery (it had rained earlier). Add the moisture from the rain to the heat from the sun, and presto! You have humidity.We did not expect to learn anything from the garden, since we were only walking down the trail. But, we learned that biodiversity is everywhere, and without it, we wouldn't survive (they also contribute to the lessening of heat. If we weren't surrounded by plants, we would have been sweltering). We met lots of different organisms along the way, some were flowers, some were insects, some were fungi... Speaking of fungi, we found this little clump of orange fungi on a rotten log and we thought the fungi looked simply adorable (yes, adorable). So here's a sample picture of the fungi we saw and also a few details:

(c) Nathan Wilson

Organism: Pycnoporus cinnabarinus

Common name: Pycnoporus

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum: Basidomycota

Class: Basidomycetes

Order: Poryporales

Family: Polyporaceae

Genus: Pycnoporus

Species: Pycnoporus cinnabarinus

Ecological relationship: Decomposer

     So, that's a wrap folks. We enjoyed this field trip because it made memories that could last a lifetime. After the trip, we were exhausted (of course) but deeply pleased because of the knowledge and fun that we attained during the field trip. We hope you enjoyed reading our last few blog posts about this marvelous adventure, which we took in the care of our very own urban guru. Thank you for taking time to read this!

All Rice!

     Did you ever walk into a restaurant that avails you to have rice-all-you can, for a mere fee of 20 pesos? If you have, let us tell you that 20 pesos is not enough for rice-all-you can. When we went to University of the Philippines Los Banos, Laguna, we were thrilled to be visiting the International Rice Research Institute. We expected to learn about how rice is planted, harvested, and packaged for human consumption, and we learned about all this by watching a video inside the IRRI facility. Unfortunately, rice sources are depleting so IRRI is teaming up with other world organizations and coming up with new technology for rice planting in order to keep rice enough for everyone to eat (see, don't waste your rice). The facility even had a museum of tools for rice and rice products. If you go there, you'll see a big statue that looks like a wall for wall climbing, but it's actually a rice cell. You'll also see some interactive TV screens, and-, wait. We might spoil the cool surprises for you if we tell you about EVERYTHING we saw. Speaking of which, we saw these little rice grains while touring round the museum. Can you imagine how many of these fill just one cup of rice?

Organism: Oryza sativa

Common name: White rice

Kingdom: Plantae

Division:  Magnoliophyta

Class:  Liliopsida

Order:  Poales

Family:  Poaceae

Genus:  Oryza

Species: Oryza sativa

 Ecological relationship: Producer

So, this is where our post ends. Hope you enjoyed it. But wait, we still have more to come! Stay tuned.

Wonder-museum!

      We know we enjoyed this particular part of the field trip very much, but, in response to what our teacher was saying, we must say 'Yes, teacher. We were singing 'rain rain go away' because the rain was dampening our spirits to go to the Museum of Natural History. When we first heard about this place, we thought it would be the place that we would least enjoy. But when we got there, we enjoyed the place so much. After looking at the exhibits, we concluded that the Museum of Natural History was the best place that we went to in the University of The Philippines Los Baños. It is a very nice place to go if you want to know the animals in the Philippines and their description. It has exhibits of animals like the Great Philippine Eagle. There are also exhibits of insects.We expected to learn about the animals of the Philippines and we did learn about those, plus so much more. Here is an example of the animals we saw in The Museum of Natural History:

Name: Philippine Eagle

Common Name: Eagle

Scientific Name: Pithecophaga jefferyi

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia                  Phylum: Chordata   
Class: Aves            Order: Falconiformes          

Family: Accipitridae            Genus: Pithecophaga

Species:Pithecophaga jefferyi
Ecological relationship: Consumer and carnivore. Its symbiotic relationship is predation.

Sa IPB- ang halaman doon, ay sari-sari!

     Hello and a pleasant day to our blog readers! As said on the title, we'll be telling you all about our experience in IPB, or the Institute of Plant Breeding, a place where plants are bred and could be found everywhere! Of course, we expected to learn about plants and hybrid breeding. But, we learned a lot more than we expected to. The IPB collects, introduces, preserves, and maintains the gametes of important and potentially useful agricultural and horticultural crops. The IPB also assists other agencies in multiplying quality seeds and vegetative materials of recommended crop varieties.We stumbled across a VERY BEAUTIFUL flower while touring around the Institute. The petals were so red, so pretty, so- oh, why don't we just show you.

(c) T. Ryan

     See? We told you it was beautiful! Here are some facts that we found that would help you learn more about this delicate flower.

  Name of organism: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 

Common name: Gumamela

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Angiospermophyta

Subclass: Rosids

Phylum: Dicotyledones

Order: Malvales

Genus: Hibiscus

Species: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Ecological relationship: Producer
 

     Yes, we know, there were a whole lot of plants in the Institute, but this one really caught our eye because if its beautiful scarlet color and the contrast of the petals to its healthy, green stem.What was also very intriguing was the fact that it was a hybrid-bred plant, or that its parents were intentionally pollinated to produce it (the guide must have caught us looking at it, because she told us these things right after we thought in our heads 'Ooh, pretty'). It really was a nice sight. Alas, this will be the end of our rave about the gorgeous scarlet flower, and the Institute of Plant Breeding. But, fret not. We'll be back with more of our adventures, some involving equally beautiful organisms, and some that involve organisms even more beautiful than this. Good-bye, and thank you for reading!

            

It's In The Milk!

     Have you ever wondered how milk products are processed? Well, we did. That is why when our batch took a field trip to Los Banos, Laguna, and visited 5 destinations, one of which was the Dairy Training and Research Institute, we listened intently to our guide and we got our answers. She toured us around the facility to show us how different milk products are made. We even learned about a type of silage that is fed to cows to increase the protein in their milk! By the way, we met this really cool bull in the DTRI. Here are some details about him:

Name: Disco (place seen: Dairy Training and Research Institute)

Common name: Bull (male cattle)

Scientific name: Bos primigenius

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia                   Order: Artiodactyla

Phylum: Chordata                    Family: Bovidae

Class: Mammalia                     Subfamily: Bovinae

Subclass: Theria                      Genus: Bos

Infraclass: Eutheria                  Species: B. primigenius

Characteristics:

Disco is all black in color except for his shoulders, knee and forehead which is color white. We chose Disco because of his color.

Ecological relationship:

Disco is a consumer and herbivore. His ecological relationship with other organisms is predation

Disco, the bull. (c) Jigger

     There was a store at the exit of DTRI that sold freshly bottled milk that came in plain and chocolate flavors. There was also some yogurt, cheese, and tofu. The milk was absolutely delicious. All in all, it was a blast learning all about dairy products.

Plant-mania; choc-full of plants!

     Well hello there dear blog-readers! Welcome to Plant-mania! This is what we, The Science Explorers, entitle our 4th Quarter CEO. If you have read the previous post, you would know what a CEO is. But if you haven't, let us run you through. A CEO is a Creative Expansive Output. It is a quarterly project that expresses creativity, fun, and learning. It also stimulates the openness of a person to facts around him/her. Okay, crunch time. Please read on as our four members tell you about our CEO.

Encephalartos sclavoii

     First off, HELLO READERS! It's me, Misha! As read above, we will be discussing our 4th quarter CEO, which was about plants. My topic was about cycads, or the Division Cycadophyta. I worked with a partner [Khael from the Science Adventurers] and we did all we could to make our presentation both factual and fun. We did have a hard time looking for the subgroups. Anyways, you may be wondering, 'what is a cycad'? My answer to that, dear-blog readers, is this---------------->


     Beautiful, isn't it? Cycads look very much like palm trees, but in truth, they are only distantly related. Cycads bear cones for reproductive purposes meaning they are gymnosperms. Did I mention that cycads are dioecious, meaning that each plant can only produce one type of gamete or sex cell? They generally live in tropical areas and can survive in relatively dry environments. The most important thing I learned about cycads is that they are beneficial both ecologically and economically as food, firewood, and such. That's all for my part of the post.

Phaeoceros laevis

              Hello everyone. This is Zion. For the 4th Quarter, my CEO was about Division Anthocerophyta. The word Anthocerophyta came from anthoceros meaning horn and phyta meaning plant.  Division Anthoceropyta is also called Hornworts. Hornworts are non-vascular plants that reproduce using spores, not seeds. They may be found all over the world. Hornworts are one of the 3 simplest plants including Division Bryophyta and Division Marchantiophyta. In my CEO, I worked alone. I worked alone for it is hard to work in a group. Being alone has advantages. I can start instantly with my CEO but if I'm in a group, I need to talk with my group mates first and divide the work. There are also disadvantages of being alone. I did all the work by myself. No one also helped me discuss the CEO. For this CEO, I had a hard time searching for a lot of informations about Hornworts. I also found it a bit easier for I had more experience in making my CEO. The most important lesson that I learned about this CEO is that Hornworts provide seed beds for other plants. This is helpful so that every plant can have space to grow and a chance to live especially now that our country lacks trees.

Vitis vinifera

Hello everyone. Donny here! My fourth Quarter CEO is all about the Class Dicotyledones, or what most people call them, Dicots. I researched about this topic as a group, not individually. I learned Dicots are flowering plants. They are the largest group of vascular plants. Their leaves are net- veined. One characteristic of the dicots that differentiates them from the monocots are its petals, which come in multiples of four or five. The monocots have petals that are only in multiples of three. Dicots have over 100 families. They give food to some animals. An example of a dicot which bears fruit is the grape vine or the Vitis vinifera. It was not that easy for me and my group to talk about dicots because there are plenty of plants that had to be researched on. However, since we were a group, we got to split the work, which is a very good advantage. However, a disadvantage of being a group was that we sometimes depend on only one person. We all talked as a group to solve this problem. 

Nephrolepis exaltata

  Hi! It’s me, Anabel. My topic for the 4^th Quarter CEO is about Division Pteridophyta. Pteridophyta, also known as ferns are vascular plants meaning they have xylem and phloem which transports nutrients to every body part of the plant. They are multicellular and don’t have seeds or flowers. Instead, they use spores to reproduce. They have 4 subgroups or classes. For this CEO, I worked side by side with Marielle from A Date with Mother Nature. Being with a group or partner is helpful so that you can divide the work. You don’t need to do all the tasks. The most important lesson I learned is that ferns can be helpful to our agriculture.                                                           

     Well, there you have it folks, your very own taste of Plant-mania, although it is only but a glimpse of the many more wonders Plant-mania. We hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading, until next time!