Announcement: Galápagos Islands

Eco system Galápagos: Part 1 Geography

Hello and welcome to the first post about the Galapagos Islands. Currents and Winds The volcanic islands of Galápagos started to form 4 million years ago. Where they lie, is unique. They are situated directly on the equator, on the Nazca tectonic plate. The Galapagos Islands are on the crossroads of three currents. The cold South Equatorial Current flows westward towards Galapagos. The warm Panama Current runs in from the north. And finally, the deep sea Cromwell Current runs from the west. The Galapagos Islands are also where the Northeast Trade Wind meets the Southeast Trade Wind. Galapagos Hotspot 21 Volcanoes make up the Galápagos Islands with 13 still active. The reason for this volcanic activity is a giant hotspot under the island. A hotspot is a gigantic column of super heated molten lava, rising up towards the surface. It is immense; at least sixty miles (97 kilometers) across and 1800 miles (2897 kilometers) deep. It connects the islands to ...

18.10.20 Animal Of The Week: Sloth

Hello, Sorry this didn't come out on Sunday as planned but this week's animal of the week is the sloth because the twentieth of October is Sloth Day. Habitat The sloth resides in Central and South America. It lives in the rainforests there and occasionally drops into the water for a bathe as, believe it or not, they are actually excellent swimmers! Diet Sloths eat leaves, twigs and buds which they find in the rainforest. As they don't have incisors they smack their lips together to make leaves more digestible. Sloths can survive on relatively little food as it takes a while for them to digest it. Sleep and Speed When you think of a sloth, you probably think of this slow, sleepy creature. They actually sleep for about 15 hours a day! Sloths have an extremely low metabolic rate (what basic calories your body needs to survive), which means they move at a slow pace through the trees. On average, sloths travel 40 yards per day ...

How much do you know about migrating birds? - Quiz

Hello everyone, We've got another quiz for you and this time it's about migrating birds. As most of you probably know, there are loads of birds that fly to a different country or even continent to avoid harsh weather and to find better feeding and breading areas. Questions True or False? Birds use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate while migrating? How many miles does an arctic term migrate? a) between 10 000 and 20 000 km b) between 20 000 and 30 000 km c) more than 40 000 km True or False? Arctic terns can fly 600km in a day. What percentage of birds migrate? a) about 40% b) about 60% c) about 80% True or False? Great snipes travel 5 000 miles at 70mph. How long can the bar-tailed godwit fly non stop for? a) nearly 5000 miles b) nearly 7000 miles c) nearly 9000 miles True or False? Bar-headed geese can fly up to 5.5 miles above sea level. ...

Coral reefs

Hello! We would love to introduce you to the topic of coral reefs and especially coral reef bleaching, as it is a greatly ignored but certainly significant topic. Have fun! 5 coral reef facts 1. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and is 2300 km long! 2. Less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface is covered in coral reefs. 3. At least 25% of all marine animals live there. 4. Coral reefs are often known as the rainforests of the ocean. 5. In 1 square kilometre of coral reef, up to 35 tons of fish can be 'produced'. The 5 biggest coral reefs in the world 1. Great Barrier Reef (near Australia) 2. Red Sea Coral Reef (near Egypt, Israel and Djibouti) 3. New Caledonia Reef (Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia) 4. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (near Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras) 5. Florida Reef (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico near Florida) What is coral? Coral is actually made up of small anim...

Climate change: what is it and what's the problem

Hello, I've noticed that we are always mentioning climate change. Not only us blog editors but also politicians, activists and so on. The words climate change are bounced around in the media and probably in your households, but do you actually know what it is or how it works? I know that for a long time, I didn't know what it really meant. I hope that this post changes that. What is climate change and how does it work? The words climate change describe a slow shift in the earth's temperature and changes in the weather patterns. Having a single warm winter does not instantly mean climate change. Climate change happens over a long period of time. If you look at a temperature graph over the years, it doesn't go up in one day and then stay the same for another hundred years. It curves up slowly but steadily. This is a average temperature graph from 1880 to just after 2000. You can see how the temperature gradually gets warmer....

2021: How Our Year Went, Favourite Posts and Some Goals For 2022 | a wrap up

Hi Everyone! Today we wanted to share some thoughts on how our blogging year went in 2021 and some goals for 2022. We are now at the end of January, which is very scary, but we hope you will still enjoy this slightly belated wrap-up. In 2021, we published 36 posts in total. This is pretty good, we posted on average roughly every 10 days. However, there was a lot of time when we didn't post at all and our posts became increasingly just the monthly fact file. Many of you enjoyed the fact file, and for the most part, we enjoyed writing it but it became a bit of a chore by the end, hence the change we have made over to top tips. We think it would be nice to change our monthly post every year, and we will of course involve you in that just as we did this year. Our best posting months were by far August and September, which is understandable because we were on holiday for August and could schedule a lot of posts for September! Something we want to wor...

Sir David Attenborough - an incredible naturalist

Hi everyone and welcome back to Green World, Today we want to talk about one of the most inspiring naturalists of our time. It is, of course, David Attenborough. Today (08.05.2021) is his 95th birthday so we seemed it fitting to publish a post about him today. Over his lifetime, David has won more than 40 awards for his work and was named among the 100 greatest Britons in 2020. David first joined the BBC in 1952 as a producer for the Talks department which looked after all non-fiction broadcasts. Since then, he has worked on lots of different programs and documentaries such as The Life Series, which was first made in 1979. More recently, he has presented Blue Planet and Blue Planet II. The latter had the most views recorded for a single program in 2017. David also gave the Royal Institution's Christmas Lecture in 1973 on The Language of the Animals. David Attenborough is still presenting documentaries to this day. He now lives in Richmo...

Beavers and their dams: what effects do they have?

Hi everyone, Today we're talking about beavers and their effects on the surrounding ecosystems and environments. 'Beaver' referres to two species in the genus Castor . They are found in North America, Europe and Asia and are the largest rodents in those places and the second largest rodents in the world. Beavers grow up to 80 cm long with a flat, paddle-shaped tail up to 45 cm. They have a small head, large incisor teeth and fur lined lips to avoid inhaling water while cutting and transporting branches underwater. They weigh 16-30kg and are nocturnal. Beavers live in streams, rivers, marshes, ponds and lakes where they construct dams. These have earned them the title 'ecosystem engineers' but we'll talk about that later. The dams are constructed with branches, sticks and rocks. They create a calm pool with a higher water level on one side. Beavers make their homes (lodges) in these calm pools. Beaver dams are both have bot...

Greta Thunberg's Speech at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019

Hi Everyone! I thought I would share the transcript of Greta Thunberg's inspiring speech from the UN Climate Action Summit. The phrase we remember is 'How dare you!'. But what did she really want us to take away from it? She wanted us to act, so watch the video using the link below and take action because the world isn't just going to heal itself. Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN Climate Action Summit video "My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic g...

29.11.2020 Animal Of The Week: Jaguar

Hello, Today (29th November) is world Jaguar day so this week our animal is the Jaguar. The Jaguar is an animal I know pretty much nothing about so I am going to learn a lot too! Jaguars (panthera onca) live for 12 - 15 years. Their heads and bodies are 150-180cm long and their tails are 70-90cm long! They weigh 45 - 110 kg. Habitat Jaguars live primarily in the Amazon Basin, though they can be found in smaller numbers in Central America. They once lived everywhere from central Argentina up to the southwestern United States but since the 1880s they have lost over half of their territory. They are mainly found in tropical rainforests but can live in savannas and grasslands. Diet They eat fish and turtles as they are actually quite competent swimmers as well as deer, iguanas, birds and monkeys; they will eat almost anything! Are they endangered? Jaguars are classed as near endangered and face several threats. South and Central Americ...

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