Learning diary

<Introduction of Water Moss>- Fan Shu-Wei

      First thing we needeed to learn when I first joined tour team was cleaning water moss. At that time, I was curious about what the water moss is. So I asked the teacher what it was when our team was brought to clean it.  The teacher answered “You will know once you clean it.” I went ahead and took off my shoes walking into the first pool, just then the teacher said, “the green thing you are stepping on is water moss.” Not until then have I known the water moss could be this yucky! Water moss is like cloth- soft and silky, and when I was in the middle of cleaning it I saw some water scorpions. I asked why there were water scorpions in the water moss and the teacher said the water scorpion finds food in the water moss. I kept on cleaning till the end, and I was having fun while doing it.

 Water moss is a high breeding water plant, it has a superpower to inhale oxygen from the water during the night. Thus, we don’t clean up all the water moss in order to leave some habitat for the water scorpions. 

      However, once the water moss is increasing, so will the water scorpions, and consequently this will break the balance of the wetland. Is there anything we can do better? I’m still wondering!

<The Scream Commandos!>- Chang Chia-Yu

      ON a Saturday in November, most of the girls in our team came, so did the teacher. The teacher said “ Hurry up here, let’s splash water on to the lotus leaves, see what will happen!” As soon as the teacher said that, we girls splashed water onto the louts leaves. The water becomes water drops when it touched the leaves, the drops glitter while sliding around on the leaves. It’s very pretty. When we soaked the leaf into the water, the leaf becomes like silvery cloth. Every time we girls stepped into the wetland we would scream because we were afraid of the frogs which we thought would jump on us. When the boys saw this, they called us “The Scream Commandos!” They really annoyed us!

<Planting Nymphoides coreana (Lev.)Hara> - Hoo Cheng-Hui

      The teacher told Yi-Kai and I to transplant Nymphoides coreana Hara For some reason, I misheard it to something else and thought it was eatable. Soon I realized the Nymphoides coreana Hara is not what I thought it was neither was it eatable. When we first transplanted it I was afraid that I might break its stem, then the teacher showed us how. We had to bring some empty basins first as we needed to plant the Nymphoides coreana Hara in the basins and then put them into the water. This is what the teacher instructed us to do: first, loosen the soil inside the basin, second, plant it in the basin, last, put the Nymphoides coreana Hara with the basin into the water slowly. We did exactly what the teacher said and we made it! I was very happy because I have learned how to plant a Nymphoides coreana Hara.

<Picking Water Caltrops> - Tsai Yung-Yun

      I have always thought the water caltrop leaves are long and big and just came to realize that they are in serrated shapes. We put our feet in the pool for picking water caltrops. The water was icy cold and the mud at the bottom of the water was sticky like paper pulp which was made from trees. The stones we stepped on are like foot massagers, they irritated the skin of our feet and it takes days to recover.

      Water caltrops are food for summer and they are very delicious. Now in the fall, the sprouts just came out. The leaves are floating on the surface of the water like a man swimming, up and down, up and down; it’s very interesting. Water caltrops taste soft, a little bitter and dry like preserved fish. Children, did you find this report on water caltrops interesting?

<Cleaning Water Moss is Interesting> - Ding Yi-Chen

      I joined the web fair, so I had to come to school every Saturday to understand the living creatures in the wetland more. One time the teacher asked me to help clean the water moss in the first pool as there were too much of them. I hesitated before I stepped in as there was a lot of grimy mud in there. But then I remembered of being in the web fair is to understand and to experience, so I went ahead and stepped into the pool. The water was icy cold and the mud sank when my weight was on it. It was horrified! The water moss was everywhere: I had a handful of it in every pick, some are light green, some dark green. Some was growing among plants and many girls didn’t want to get in closer to clean so I volunteered. After the work is done, it’s quite fun when come to think of it. From the time on, if the teacher asks us girls to clean up in the pool again, I always encourage and tell them: we like it or not we still need to get down anyway so let’s not be afraid. From this experience, I have learned a lesson: we learn more when we have more hands-on experience.

<Liquidambar formosana Hance, not Green Maple>- Mei Chin

      For all the Saturdays we came to school, today is my favorite day as the teacher is bringing liquidambar leaves and we will grind it with a blender. Girls are responsible for the leaves and the boys cleaning the pool. We added water while grinding it then put the sap into a bucket. It took quite a while to finish with all the leaves we were given. We were so happy when we were done with it. The sap that we collected was pretty yucky but we had a total different view about it when the teacher told us that the sap is a wonderful medicine for killing water moss. Liquidambar formosana Hance is indigenous to Taiwan. In the spring, fully grown green leaves are very pretty and they turn to yellow or red when the autumn comes. Liquidambar are grown in many places in Taiwan – Au-Wen-Da, WuLin Farm, Central Highway area, Northern Highway area, and Malaban Mount.. These are all very famous scenery points during the winter .

When it comes to enjoy the foliage of maples, some people said it’s the liquidambars that we enjoyed but some said it’s not. There is another plant which many people often confused with liquidambar is called green maple. They are different plants. For the liquidambar, its leaves are alternate and it has a long-stalked drooping brown ball fruit. But for the green maple, its leaves are opposite and it has long wing fruit. There is a common saying “Three liquidambar five maple” which is used to differentiate the maple from the liquidambar by the number of lobes on each leaf. This is not exactly right as the lobes on one liquidambar leaf could be varied and has more than 3 lobes. I would suggest we take a closer look at how they grow on both to make a better statement. As for in the ancient Chinese time when poets described a maple in their poems, did they mean the liquidambars or the green maples? The answer would be: it depends. In general, the liquidambar ranges on the south of the Yellow River in China, and the maples on the north of it. Ready to be more confused? According to the latest research, the liquidambar is the maple.

In fact, the ancient Chinese don’t pay much attention in botany. Maybe they only considered maples was just a kind of plant which turns leaves in red.  It didn’t matter if they have enjoyed the foliage of the liquidambars of the green maples; they are both beautiful. There are some distinctive descriptions about the liquidambars: Large, deciduous and aromatic tree with straight trunk and conical crown that becomes round and spreading, leaves are alternate, star-shaped or maplelike, its fruit is 1-1/4” in diameter; a long stalked drooping brown ball composed of many individual fruits, its flowers commonly has male and female on same or separate trees or bisexual.

There are five different kinds in the liquidambar family. They spread out in North America, Central America, East Asia, and West Asia.  Liquidambar formosana Hance is indigenous to Taiwan; and it spreads in the middle or low altitude areas. Liquidambar formasana Hance is a popular red-leaf plant seen in the middle and low altitude during the fall and winter season. The shape of the tree is pretty all year round. Its trunk is a good material for growing mushrooms. The red leaf is produced by warm sunny fall days followed by cool nights that transform leftover food in the leaves into red pigment. Foliage turns orange or yellow when the chlorophyll, which makes other colors, is destroyed. In the spring and summer time, the leaves of liquidambar and green maple are green and palmately lobed, so people often confused them with each other. The simplest way to distinquish them is by their leaves and fruits: green maple’s leaves are opposite and it has long wing fruit, and liquidambar’s leaves are alternate and it has brown ball fruit. During the summer in 1993, teacher Chen Chia-Wu planted both green maple and liquidambar in our campus, wait until they blossom I believe we will learn more then!

< Crenate Marsilea is Amazing!> - Yi-Kai

      The stem of Crenate marsilea can go through crevices between rocks. We only need to plant few seeds and their stems can go into anywhere. Gradually, the whole wetland is covered by Crenate marsilea.  When Chi-Lin and I was told to clean the Crenate marsileas in the pools, we couldn’t help but stepped on the pebbles as there were too many. They irritated the skin of our feet like feet massagers.

<Maple Juice>-Zih-Wun

On a Saturday, the teacher asked some girls from our web fair team to pluck some maple leaves and make “maple juice” for the water moss. Then Chia-Yu and I splashed it to anywhere water moss could be found.  Some areas in the 3^rd pool are not splashed, so the teacher had some boys come and work on the 3^rd pool. Overall, it was a good memory for me.

<Fighting against Aphids> - Chi-Lin

      On a Saturday in November, my classmates Yu, Ts-Mei, Yun, Chin-Chai, and I saw aphids all over the surface of the Hydrocleys nymphiodes. So the teacher asked us to bring some plastic bags for putting in the Hydrocleys nymphiodes. The teacher pinched the aphids with hands trying to kill them and we flush the Hydrocleys nymphiodes with the tap water but none of us were successful. It took us a while but we finally were able to put the aphids to the sewer. However, there was still aphids in the wetland, but not as many as before. A few days later, more aphids were born; and the wetland was taken again by the aphids.
　

We used the same way we did before trying to get rid of them, but it’s not working. If we couldn’t get rid of the aphids, the Hydrocleys nymphiodes will rot. Consequently, the wetland will be taken. So whenever we thought of some ideas that might work, we would try. If that method didn’t work we would think of something else. It’s been going like this for days, so we went back to the first method we were using; we put the Hydrocleys nymphiodes inside a plastic bag. The teacher pinched them, and we three flush them with water. Somehow, it worked this time and we were able to get rid of the aphids once and for all.

<Water Lily VS Lotus Flower> - Gin-Chia

      I think water lily is an amazing plant; the more it’s facing the sun the more it blossoms. One time, a team member from the Little Frogy and I saw a water lily blossoms at around 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning. I was so amazed by it (I didn’t know it blossoms whenever there is sun light). From that time on, I started to like water lilies. At first, I thought water lily is lotus flower, but then I noticed the difference on their leaves. There are fine hairs on lotus flower’s leaves but not on water lily’s. Another difference is that water lily blossoms almost all year around, but lotus flower blossoms only in the summer. These are the things I learned from attending the web fair.