Lisu's Malaysia Trip: Adaptation & Mystery caused by Soil Erosion with Application Questions

I went for a short trip to Malaysia for QingMing to pay respect for to my grandfather. It is my first time experience with my family in the ‘tomb sweeping’ experience and right now you must be wondering what does this QingMing festival got to do with Science?

Nature of Life

Chinese believe that the souls of the deceased will be possessed in some insects and will visit those that are still alive. There was this particularly strange occurrence which we continued to have white butterflies visiting us, our homes and even following us to the basketball court that night.

Our eyes were tracing the white butterfly as it flew upwards and away from the basketball court. In a split second a bird zoomed past and in the next moment what we saw were white wings floating downwards. It’s quite upsetting to see that. But yes, its nature of life.

So… we have a food chain here:

Butterfly à Bird 

Why did the bird spot the butterfly so easily?

The wings of the butterfly is white in colour, so it reflected light into the birds eyes and the white wings cannot camouflage and blend in with the night sky, thus the bird can spot its prey easily and catch its prey. 

Primary Science Adaptation Question:

Adaptation of Insects

The diagram below shows a brown insect before and after open its wings.

(a) List two structural adaptations that the insect shown above has to prevent it from being caught by its predators.(2m)

(i) It has powerful hind legs (from the question) which allows it to escape quickly from predators.

(ii) The red and white spots that resemble huge eyes (from the question) on the wings of the insect will cause the predator to mistaken it as large animal, thus will not prey on it.

What happened to the bodies of the deceased?

The bodies are broken down by decomposers. The decomposers will break down dead matter into simplest substances which is returned into the soil as fertilisers. Decomposers include Bacteria and Fungi.

Dead matter à Decomposers 

MYSTERY 

My student shared with me that his parents dug out the coffin and opened it only to realize that the coffin doesn’t belong to his grandparent. (valuables in coffin is an indication). They dug out another coffin on the right and happen to be that one. And what is the science behind this? 

Soil Erosion

The piece of land which coffins are laid are probably quite bare. Thus there are no trees with roots to hold onto soil particles. The soil will be exposed to wind and rain and over time, the soil is washed by wind and rain leading to soil erosion which cause the coffins to shift slightly in the position. 

Primary Science Soil Erosion Question:

Lisu used the following set ups to conduct an investigation. All variables in her experiment were kept constant except for the content inside the plastic box with hole. 

From the height of 60cm, she poured 1000ml of water into each plastic box. She allowed the soil that collected in each round pan to settle for 10 minutes before measuring the dept of the soil at the bottom of each pan. The results in her experiment are shown in the following table. 

Based of the results of Lisu’s investigation, what might happen to a stream habitat if people removed all the plants from a hillside next to the stream? (2m)

There will no trees with roots to hold onto soil particles at the hillside. The soil will be exposed to wind and rain and over time, the soil is washed by wind and rain leading to soil erosion. When the soil is washed into the stream, it cause the stream to be polluted and the organisms in stream habitat will be affected.

Have you notice anything that you wish to share with us or any burning questions to challenge us?

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