Elective Geography Journal Entry #8

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.7% of Australia's population. Australian Aborigines traditionally lived throughout Australia, on the island of Tasmania and some other adjacent islands. They have no certain place of residence, although they do have territories and ate whatever they could either catch, kill, or dig out of the ground. Meals were simple and so were their preparation. Health care is a major problem for most Aboriginal people. For rural groups, accessibility to health care was extremely limited. Australian Aborigines were one of the only groups of people in the world not to wear any type of clothing. Both men and women were out without any clothing. Today, however, things have changed considerably as Aboriginals dress the same as Australians but they also have different kinds of beliefs, when compared to the Australians we interact with nowadays.There is a great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own unique mixture of cultures, customs and languages. In present day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities.

Elective Geography Journal Entry #7

On March 3 2011,Mr kwek went through on forests as resources,we also learnt that these forests maintain nutrients in the soil, replenishes oxygen and removes carbon dioxide, maintains the quality and quantity of the water supply, protects coasts and reduces impact of natural disasters such as tsunamis, a habitat for flora and fauna, a source of useful material such as medicine or fuel, and a place for recreation, research and education.

Elective Geography Journal #6

On 22 February, Mr Kwek gave us notes on coniferous forests/taiga. He went through the notes, teaching us where coniferous forests are found and certain conditions that the forest face and how they adapt to it. We learn how latitudes affect temperature and what happens when certain parts of the Earth gets high or low density of incident rays from the Sun. The coniferous forests are also not as dense as tthe others and the trees grow in pure strands where they are very little different species growing there. We also learnt that male cones produces pollen while female cones produce seeds.

Elective Geography Journal Entry #5

On 17 February 2011, Ms Lee went through with us on the answers for the workbook and the worksheet 1 on natural vegetation. Afterwards, she taught us that under Tropical climate, there are two categories which are equatorial and tropical monsoon. Rainforest is categorised under equatorial, Mangrove forests along the coastal areas  is under equatorial and tropical monsoon and Tropical Monsoon forests is under tropical monsoon.

Elective Geography Journal Entry #4

On February 7 2011, Mr kwek gave us an article.The article showed us on people with typical views such as the being mangrove forests being ugly due to common fears of bugs and unappreciation.Someone who thought mangroves ugly and was afraid of a snake dropping of his head finally managed to gather up the courage to visit the mangrove with his family. Instead of find it ugly and dangerous,he actually found that it was beautiful.
Personally,I think it will be better for people to pay a visit to mangrove forests before deciding on whether they like or not.It takes time to spot the hidden beauty of the forest.Mangrove trees grow where some trees have never grown before. They are able to survive conditions that would kill normal forests thanks to adaptations.They are also a great help when violent storms that hit the coasts such as tsunamis which they protect those living nearby by reducing the force of impact and damage.

Elective Geography Journal Entry #3

On 25 January 2011,Mr kwek showed us a video and taught us how plants adapt to their surrounding climate such as the trees in tropical monsoon forests which has adapted to tap water sources deep under ground due to irregular rainfall throughout the year by having deep tap roots.We also learnt futher on about the characteristics and structure of the Monsoon Forests and the different types of roots.

Elective Geography Journal Entry #2

On 20 January 2011,Ms Lee taught us further on the same topic we learnt by Mr kwek on 11 January 2011. We learnt how certain vegetation are suited to the climate at the area and what vegetations are found at certain areas according to the climate such as Tropical rainforests which are mainly found between 10 degrees north and 10 degrees south of the equator. We also learnt how certain plants have adapted to certain conditions and certain graphs such as the climograph to show relationships between precipitation and temperatures.