Violeta and the Rara -

Violeta and the Rara

Violeta and the Rara

Outdoor Science to Explore the World

Outdoor Science to the World

illustrated by Cristian Garrido Alfaro

© Marioli Saldías O´hrens, de los textos.

© Cristian Garrido Alfaro, de las ilustraciones.

© Pehuén Editores S.A.

Av. Brown Norte 417, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile

+ 56 22 7957131

editorial@pehuen.cl

www.pehuen.cl

Inscripción Nº 256.931

ISBN 978-956-16-0661-6

Primera Edición dos mil ejemplares, agosto 2016

Wildlife Conservation Society-Chile

www.wcs.org

+56 (2) 2 222 2697

Edición al cuidado de Marcela López O.

Diseño

Ana Sanfelippo

María José Garrido

Derechos reservados para todos los países.

www.karukinkachile.wcs.org

Ninguna parte de este libro puede ser reproducida, transmitida o almacenada, sea por procedimientos mecánicos, ópticos, químicos, eléctricos, electrónicos, fotográficos, incluidas las fotocopias, sin autorización escrita de los editores.

IMPRESO EN CHINA / PRINTED IN CHINA

Violeta and the Rara

Violeta and the Rara

Outdoor Science to Explore the World

illustrated by Cristian Garrido Alfaro

Acknowledgements

First of all, thank you.... Thank you to my mother and father, for their eternal support and nourishing love. Thanks to my brother Marcelo, for encouraging me to connect with my talents unfolding so freely yours. Thanks to my colleague Christian, for his patient understanding. and wise vision. Thanks to Barbara Saavedra, for believing in my work and transmitting to me her strength and security helping me so to face this sweet challenge without hesitation. Thank you to Peter Feinsinger and his Chicken, for his selfless and loving. commitment to education for the care of the nature and human. of our magical Latin America. I especially thank those so creative names, which help to soften the relationship with sophisticated equipment, names that. I have incorporated in this book as part of the own language of the EEPE.

And of course, thank you very much for all the knowledge, suggestions, guidelines and examples embodied in the Guide, Principles and practice of teaching ecology in the courtyard of the school by Natalia Arango, María Eugenia Chaves and Peter Feinsinger that published in the year 2009 with the support of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity. (IEB). and the Senda Foundation Darwin. (FSD)

Finally, thanks to life and the universe for being here, now.

Everything was going well in her first days back to school. The reunion with her friends, games recess and evenings in the greenhouse with the school eco group had very happy Violeta. However, everything changed when Professor Salvatierra, in the Natural Sciences class, he told them that during that year they were going to work on the in the "scientific skills".

She didn’t know why, but Violeta had her stomach squeezed when she heard her teacher speak about the "scientific method" and even more so when told them that the next day they had to take your first scientific task. Yes. Well, she liked to learn new things, this time she thought only of numbers, tables and words rare that she could never pronounce.

During recess, as she spent her disillusionment sitting on the stool under the mayten, a little bird sat next to him. It was very strange, his eyes were red, round and large and when she chirped it sounded like a rattle.

—You’re a little weird, but cute just the same —Violeta spoke to her amicably..

—Rare —said the bird.

—¡Ah! you’re female...

—Yes, but I’m also a rare, a native bird from Chile, my scientific name is Phytotoma rare and my personal name is Lihuén, means light in Mapuche language. —explained the little bird.

—Scientific name! No please! I don’t want anything with science, very complicated for me

—claimed Violet very upset.

—But calm down, there is no reason to get angry, I can help you —said kindly the rara

—My friend Peter, an American ecologist, taught me a very entertaining and simple way of understand and apply the scientific method. Since then, I am researching everything what surrounds me, I have learned a lot. Let me tell you more...

Since time immemorial you human beings have been interested in what happens around you, as all you need to live and stay healthy, to be able to grow, learn and play they get it from the environment that surrounds them your ancestors, as your grandparents, greatgrandparents and even the oldest humans on our planet, were able to survive on earth thanks to their curiosity and enormous desire to know what was happening around them, which motivated them to explore their environment and learn from it, and thus solve the different situations that life presented them day by day.

For example, women who collected food for their families knew where and in what moment they could find the richest and most fleshy fruits.

They also knew how to collect them without damaging them and how to keep them for a while without being spoiled. The hunting men knew in what place and time they could find their prey and what were the best elements of nature to make tools, spears and arrows. And, of course, the girls and boys knew exactly what materials to make dolls and balls to play with and from which branch it was safer to hang and swing.

The key was, and still is, to try without fear of error and be attentive to the results to be able to learn. Over time, individual learning and discovery were accumulating and transforming into knowledge. So, today you know what it takes to grow potatoes, rice, tomatoes and apples, or how they can communicate between faraway places, or when a comet will pass through our sky, or what are the effects of its actions on our planet and how to take care of; it in addition to many other knowledge that has driven the development of humanity.

One way to acquire knowledge is through research, that is, by seeking information in different parts to be able to answer any question that surrounds our or to solve any problem that comes our way. And to get the information it is necessary to follow an orderly set of steps, that is, to use a method.

Scientists, for example, use the scientific method as a tool to carry out their research and get the information they need to answer your questions.

Unfortunately, many people believe that everything related to science and research is something complicated and boring, or that it is the stuff of crazy geniuses, without realizing that curiosity, the desire to explore and learn how things work, is something natural in human beings,

you are born scientists!

Inquiry cycle

As I told you before, there is a very entertaining and simple way to understand and apply the scientific method in just three steps: the cycle of inquiry. Everything starts by simply observing over and over again what surrounds us, the nature that expresses itself from the incredible smallness of an atom to the wonderful immensity of a forest, the mountain range or the ocean. And by "observing" I don't mean just looking with our eyes, but rather receiving all the sensations that come from our senses. You humans have very sophisticated instruments in your body with which you can perceive the world around you: your eyes, your ears, your skin, your nose, and your tongue. They also have a brain capable of gathering all the information sent by the senses and adding it to what they already know, stored by memory. They also have a heart from which feelings and love are born, that force that attracts them, unites them with the world, and drives them to explore, discover and understand what surrounds them.

By observing, more than one thing will catch your attention and you will feel curious or want to know what is happening there, and naturally you will begin to ask yourself questions about what you have seen. Each of those questions could be answered if we took action and collected data ourselves.

That information, in addition to helping us answer our question, will make us reflect on the results we obtained through the action and about what could happen in other places and situations.

Question

Action Reflection

As a result of the complete cycle (Question — Action — Reflection), and motivated by other observations and the immortal curiosity, new questions will arise that we will be able to answer using this Cycle of Inquiry again.

The most entertaining thing about all this is that we can learn by doing experiments and measurements in the great natural laboratory that exists out here and reflect on what we have done, without having to memorize anything, simply open to learning and being surprised.

Surely you have already realized that knowledge has been built driven by the desire to know what is not known and the curiosity that has motivated them to explore the world and discover the mysteries that life hides, observing even the smallest detail of what catches your attention and wondering about what they see. And in this you, the girls and boys, are experts curious, inquisitive and explorers!

Let's get to work and start with the task of teacher Salvatierra

—"Now?" —Violet asked.

—"No, now you have to go back to class —Lihuén replied. —But as soon as you come back from school, let's get together in the patio of your house. Dress in comfortable clothes that you can get dirty and remember to take a notebook with you to put your notes and drawings.

When Violeta arrived from school, she went straight to her room, left her backpack, changed her clothes and took a notebook to quickly go out to the patio where Lihuén was waiting to guide her in her first scientific experience.

There she did the following activity:

1) 2) 3) 4)

After touring the patio, Violeta chose a small corner that had many different things to look at, such as stones, plants, dirt, grass, cement, waste, etc., and marked a square or “little plot” of 1 meter by each side, that is, 1 square meter (1 m2).

She carefully observed the plot for a few minutes, using all her senses, and drew a sketch with everything she found in her notebook, which helped her to more easily recognize the elements of her mini-landscape.

Once the drawing was ready, Violeta wrote 5 questions in her notebook following these rules:

a| the questions have to be related only to what was observed in the plot;

b| questions should not have known answers and

c| all questions are valid, there are no silly questions

Once Violeta finished writing her questions, she read them aloud so that the bird rara could give her opinion:

Violeta's question:

How did these plants get here?

* Why are there so many ants in the rosebush?

* Why is the land at the top of the plot dry and the one at the bottom wet?

* Will this corner always be the same?

* Why are white flowers more fragrant than red ones?

— Very well, Violeta! —said Lihuén— these are very interesting questions. You have taken your first step as a scientist!

—Really? —Violeta replied, a little unsure of what she had done—, but you said that scientists, in addition to asking questions, could answer them, and I don't know how to do it.

—Well, while all the questions you raised are valid, only a few can be answered using the inquiry cycle… —the Rara said.

—Ray! You cheated on me! —Violeta interrupted, feeling disappointed.

—Don't worry... in order to answer a question through the inquiry cycle, it must meet four very important characteristics, Lihuén explained, and if our question doesn't meet those characteristics, we just have to adjust it.

The question must be:

Answerable

in a given time. To know this we can ask ourselves what are we going to measure? o What information are we going to record? If we can determine this and can take that information in a timely manner, then our question is answerable.

Comparative

and the comparison must be based on something that we think may be influencing what we are going to measure. To know if our question is comparative, we can ask ourselves: what are we going to compare?

For example, —said the strange one— your question, why is the land that is in the highest part of the parcel dry and the one that is in the lowest part is wet? although it is comparative (high part versus low part the plot), entertaining, simple and direct, is a difficult question to answer. This, since the whys refer to the causes or reasons why something happens, and to know about them we need to know the facts of the past, and in the present we can hardly observe what happened in the past. However, these types of questions reflect our purest curiosity or concern to know what happens in what we observe and are the basis on which we can formulate a question that can be answered.

Entertaining

The question must be attractive to us. If we already know the answer, or if answering it would take a lot of time and work, it would not be interesting for us to investigate.

Simple and direct

To answer our question, complex, expensive, and hard-to-find materials and equipment should not be needed. And at least at first, complicated words of scientific language should be avoided, so that everyone can understand. Then, as we learn, we will become familiar with it and we will be able to incorporate it without problems

After animatedly conversing about the observations and questions of the plot, the new scientific friends decided to choose one of them, adjust it according to the four guidelines and design an investigation to be able to respond to Violeta's original concern.

Water that you should not absorb let her run

As Violeta looked at her plot, she noticed that the soil at the top of the mound was lighter in color than the soil at the bottom and flattest part. Without thinking much about it, she touched the soil in both places and noticed that the one at the top was dry and the one at the bottom was wet.

This discovery caught his attention and, without digging too much into his memory, he recalled that in a documentary that Professor Salvatierra showed them in class, he learned that gravity is the force that attracts all objects to the surface of the Earth, that is, which makes all things stick to the ground. Anxiety arose immediately.

Why is the soil at the top of the plot dry and the soil at the bottom wet? Could it be that the inclination and gravity cause the water to slip off and that the soil of the upper part cannot absorb it, accumulating in the lower part of the mound?

Violeta and the bird Rara, fascinated with the mystery to be discovered, thought of a way to respond to this concern and designed the following experiment:

Question:

What amount of water exceeds and is not absorbed by the soil contained in three trays that have different slopes or slopes?

* What is measured? The amount of water exceeded and not absorbed by the earth.

* What is compared? Three different slopes (high slope, medium slope and zero slope).

Action|Sophisticated materials and equipment:

3 trays

All the same size and depth.

Watering can

with holes in the lid.

Incliners

Notebooks or other object to give it the inclination.

Suitable for trays

Homemade cylinder: graduated glass with the width of a finger

Colored pencils

Field notebook

Cardboard

Bottle

3 water collectors Containers.

Process:

1) 2) 5)

Before starting, Violeta invited her neighbor and classmate Clara to do the experiment together, since they would need a pair of hands, a pair of eyes and a brain to carry it out.

Between the two of them they prepared the place for the experiment and gathered all the necessary materials. Using a glass, a marker, and their fingers, they constructed a homemade test tube, marking the thickness of one of their fingers consecutively on the glass from the bottom to the top edge of the glass.

3) 4)

They filled 3 trays with soil and put them on a table, resting them on the tilters (6 notebooks for the high slope, 3 for the medium slope and 0 for the tray without slope) and leaving the lowest end of the trays at the edge of the table to be able to collect the overflowing water without any problem. They poured a certain amount of water into the watering can and with it Violeta watered one of the trays while Clara, very attentive, collected in a container the water that was not absorbed by the earth and exceeded the tray. Performed this same action in the remaining trays, always using the same amount of water to irrigate.

Then, with the help of the homemade cylinder, they measured the amount of water that Clara collected at the end of each tray and recorded it in the field notebook.

6) 7)

Repeated steps 3, 4 and 5 twice more, and once the data was obtained, they transferred it to the following table:

To see the results of the experiment more clearly, they made the following bar graph on cardboard and stuck it on the wall to show it to Lihuén and reflect on the experience together:

Reflection:

To begin the reflection, Lihuén asked them: what results did you obtain in this experiment?

The girls looked at the graph with their results and after a few seconds Clara said:

* In the trays that were steeper, more water spilled than in the other trays, and in the trays with no slope, no water spilled at all. That means that the soil in the trays with a steep slope absorbed less water —continued Violeta— and that the soil in the trays without a slope absorbed all the water.

Very good! —said Lihuén encouraging them— and what relationship does that have with what you observed in your small plot?

* Mmmm… I know! —answered Violeta very animatedly—, the earth that is in the upper part of the mound is dry because the water doesn't stay there. Gravity causes the water to flow up the lowest part and, as there is no slope there, the earth can absorb it, which is why it is humid.

Great! And what else did you see in her experiment? —the Rara asked.

* Eeeee… We also saw that the water from the trays that had a steeper slope dragged a lot of earth when going down, and it was very cloudy. In the trays with a medium slope, it dragged little soil, and it was slightly cloudy, while in the trays with no slope, the water did not drag any soil —dijo Violeta.

Yes! —Clara exclaimed enthusiastically— then when there is a steep slope, water is lost and land is lost. I remember that teacher Salvatierra told us that when you lose the part surface of the earth is called erosion and that is bad because the most fertile part of the soil is there, there are the nutrients that plants need to live.

— But how clever these little girls are! — Lihuén encouraged them— Surely you remember from your history classes, that the indigenous peoples of the altiplano, such as the Aymara, the Atacameños and the Diaguitas quickly realized this problem with the slopes, so that to grow their food they built terraces, flat and stepped land on the slopes of the mountains, so as not to lose water and soil, elements so necessary for the life of the plants they cultivated.

—How wonderful! Now I do understand about the famous terraces! —Violet said happily.

—Very good job girls!" Do you see that the scientific method was not so terrible? Now that you know the steps of the inquiry cycle, you will be able to answer many of your questions scientifically —said the bird Rara getting ready to fly.

—But don't go yet! —the girls shouted in chorus.

—My homework is done, trust you and, as good scientists, don't forget to share what you know... See you soon... —Lihuén said, taking flight.

After this experience, Violeta and Clara were very happy and enthusiastic about science, so much so that they always looked for the opportunity to observe, ask questions and try to answer them, and, of course, share with their friends this beautiful way of seeing the world.

In the shade I'm cold, in the sun I'm hot

One day during recess, while Violeta and Clara were playing Hidden with their companions, without wanting to, they came to hide in a small garden that they had never seen before. While they waited to be found, they carefully observed the place. It was dark and cool, and apparently some of the plants there were different from those across the yard.

When they came back from recess they had a Natural Sciences class, there Professor Salvatierra told them that all plants need light, air, water and nutrients to live.

This information aroused the curiosity of the little scientists and, very excited, they told the professor what they had observed in the unknown garden.

Until at one point they asked him: Why in some places there are plants that in other places there are not, if all do they need the same to live? Could it be that plants prefer live in some places and not in others?

The teacher, very happy with the questions from Violeta and Clara, decided to investigate what was happening with the plants in the schoolyard, and together with his students they carried out the following study:

Question:

Which and how many plants live in sunny and shady places in the schoolyard?

* What is measured? The type and number of plants..

* What is compared? Sunny places and shady places in the schoolyard.

Action|Sophisticated materials and equipment:

Process:

1)

2) 3) 4)

All together they walked around the schoolyard observing and looking for, to investigate, places with plants and that were most of the day in the sun or in the shade.

They found a total of 15 possible places to be studied, 9 sunny and 6 shady. From them they randomly selected 5 sunny and 5 shady places, wrote the numbers on pieces of paper and put them in a bag. He numbered the shaded places from 10 to 15, wrote the numbers on pieces of paper and put them in another bag.

The teacher divided the class into 5 teams of 3 or 4 students and each team was asked to take a piece of paper out of the bag to assign a sunny study place and a shady study place. In addition, he gave each group a phytoabundance meter, to use as a standard unit of measurement: an ulaula that had four pieces of straw tied to the ends, forming 8 equal quadrants inside.

At each of the study sites, the students threw the phytoabundance meter without looking, and where it landed, they observed and recorded what types of plants remained inside it and in what quantity, aided by the dials of the phytoabundance meter ( coverage of 1/8, 2/8 or 1/4, 3/8, 4/8 or 1/2, 5/8, 6/8 or 3/4, 7/8 or an integer for each type of plant).

5) 6)

When all the teams finished with their measurements, together they completed the following summary table:

ABUNDANCE OF PLANTS IN:

To see the results of the investigation more clearly, they constructed the following pie charts on cardboard with the average values of the abundance of plants, obtained with the data of all the work groups:

7) 8)

And to analyze the types of plants in sunny and shady places they built the following Venn diagram

LUGARESSOLEADOS

PASTO

FLOR AMARILLA TRÉBOL ORTIGA

HOJITA REDONDA

SUELO DESNUDO

LUGARESSOMBREADOS

Then, all together in the classroom and with the graphics and Venn diagram posted on the blackboard, they analyzed their results and reflected on the experience, guided by Professor Salvatierra.

Reflection:

To begin, the teacher asked: What results did you get? Students responded by brainstorming:

—In sunny places there is more grass and more clover —said one. —And in the shady places there are more little yellow flowers —said another. —Then maybe the grass and the clover like to live in the sun and the yellow flower likes to live in the shade —said the skinny one.

—Very well!—the professor encouraged them— Although all plants need the same basic elements to live, some like the sun more than others, some need much more water or more quantity of some nutrient than others, some even like to live in extreme conditions of cold or heat, such as those found at the top of the mountain range or in the desert or the southern zone of Chile... And what else can we see in the graphs?

—That the nettle and the soil without plants have more or less the same amount in the sun and in the shade, —said Violeta.

—But yesterday there was much more nettle, I even pricked myself when I went to get the ball —said a little lady.

—Yes, and in the afternoon, I saw the gardener taking out the nettle right where we took the data, —Clara said— and in the place where we had to measure, there was bare soil with the remains of nettle leaves and branches.

—Yes, we saw the same thing where we measured, —said the good guy for the ball.

—We also! —said a little curly..

—But it seems that he didn't finish removing it because there are two places where there were nettles, —added the professor.

—Rays! Then what we did is useless! —one murmured disappointed.

—Don't worry, everything we've done is good for us, and a lot. Thanks to his observations of the nettle, we have discovered that in addition to light or shadow there are other factors different from the basic elements to live that make a plant be or not in a place, in this case we have the gardener factor that made the amount of nettle in the sunny places was almost the same as in the shady places —explained the professor— perhaps all the bare soil in the sunny places was occupied by nettle... and what can we see in the Venn diagram?

— That there is no round leaf in sunny places, it only lives in shady places —Violeta said. —And that the other plants live in both places, with the sun and with the shade —Mateo said..

—Good! But remember that we can only say that for the places we investigated in the schoolyard and at the time we did the study, who knows, maybe somewhere where the temperature or the soil is different, or in another season of the year. , the round leaf does live in the sun —explained the teacher— In any case, I can tell you that there are some plants that only live under very special conditions and are found in very specific places, perhaps the round leaf is one of them, and there are others They can live in a variety of environments.

At that time it was almost time to go out for recess, so the teacher congratulated them on their good work and gave them the task of answering the following questions to continue reflecting. You try it too.

* Besides the amount of light and the gardener, what other factors could make plants live in some places and not in others? (Think about factors like temperature, wind, humidity, nutrients, predators, competitors, etc.)

* Will there be something in the way of carrying out the research, that is, in the study procedure, that has influenced the results obtained? Is this the best way to conduct the investigation? If you think not, how would you do it?

* Will the same thing happen in other places and times? Have you seen in natural places, such as on the slopes of streams, differences in the type and number of plants? If not, do some research and imagine what it could be like and when you visit one, see what it really is like.

* From this experience, what new questions are going through your head?