Issue 3 March 2016
Happy Easter Junior Engineers! Hello for the ďŹ rst me in 2016! How has your year been so far? Busy we bet! With Summer holidays a distant memory, you’ve probably forgo$en just how much you’ve grown! But we know you’ve probably had to get new shoes, new uniforms, clothes and hair cuts all organised before school began. We’ve been talking about growth all last month. If you’re a mailing list member, we’ve sent out sunower seeds for you to have a go at growing. We’ve been trying to be gardeners, even in the e-struct oďŹƒce. Here are some progress pictures of our plants. They love the window sill in our kitchen.
Gallahorn
From three li$le cups to eight big pots! Our seedlings are 4 weeks old.
Extatosoma aratum is the scien ďŹ c name for the spiny leaf insect. It sounds like a spell from Harry Po er, but the two part name is made up of Greek words meaning: to be outside your body & like a leaf. And it acts like a leaf! It ‘blows in the wind’ if it feels a breeze and it dances if it is stressed!
Also James, our geotechnical engineer, has given Jade and I baby spiny leaf insects to take care of. Because I misheard him and thought we I also dance when I’m stressed, were receiving a s ck insect, I called mine Mys c (Miss S ck), but that but less scien ďŹ cally. was a bit inaccurate! Jade’s son named theirs Gallahorn which certainly had more character! And just yesterday, James brought in a newly hatched baby, named Turbo, to join Gallahorn in the Spiny Leaf insect tank Jade’s set up. They are pre$y low maintenance pets—you give them a light spray of water, twice a day (like dew forming on trees in their habitat) and feed them eucalyptus leaves, fresh ones Eggs every few days. Like all animals, you can tell how happy and healthy Images from www.strikingimages.com.au/ they are by checking out how they’re growing, whether the leaves are being nibbled at and how much poo they produce (Yes they do poo, a Tiny Turbo lot!) My biggest lesson this month is that female insects can lay eggs without male insects being involved and they s ll hatch. This form of reproduc on is called parthenogenesis and happens in some but not all egg laying animals such as ďŹ sh, amphibians, birds and rep les. I don’t think Easter eggs are aected!
Mys c