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Year 8 walk on the wildside

18 October 2019

In Geography this half term, pupils in Year 8 are studying rainforests and their climate. To complement their studies, they are also looking at rainforest animals and were delighted to have a visit from Spike, the Animal Man. Pupil Karishma gives an account of the morning:

“We learned about the Amazon rainforest, so we looked at the amazon fires and how they affect both tribes and animals. We considered the tribes that live in the rainforest and we compared our lives with theirs; how would we survive in the rainforest? And what would we take if we could only take five items with us?

“After Spike answered our questions, he took a tarantula out of its cage - this is what people were most frightened about! The tarantula, named Rose, originated from South America. She wasn’t intimidating in the slightest, as even though she had eight eyes most of them were covered up by her hair. Tarantulas are very hairy! Did you know that even though tarantulas have two fangs they are quite docile and rarely bite people? Tarantulas are also very resilient; if they break or lose one of their legs, they can just grow it back again.

“The second animal presented was a tenrec named Mrs Sniff, as she tended to sniff her surroundings. She is related to the elephant and is a small version of an anteater and similar to a hedgehog. The only amphibian that we saw was Sally, the lizard-looking salamander from Southern Europe, whose cage was filled with water as she can swim. We saw an owl named Alan who can rotate his head at 360 degrees. We also met Jambo the African snake, George the spiky Australian bearded dragon lizard and finally some cockroaches who were very jumpy, especially if you stroked their back.

“We were very appreciative to have had the opportunity to see all these animals and for such an entertaining morning.”

Karishma Mangal 8B

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