The world of reptiles.
On Saturday, 9th March, our Ecopatrol children got acquainted with snakes, turtles, lizards, chameleons, and many other cold-blooded, scale-covered animals that belong to the group of reptiles, a name that comes from the Latin word for “slither”, as many of them are either legless or with very short legs set at the sides of the body.
The beginning of the workshop was very creative. At first, we met snakes and their capacity to replace their skin. Each child got part of the drawing of a snake, on which to create a scales’ pattern. The result of their creativity and cooperation is a giant, colourful snake which the children nicknamed “Mona Lisa”. After that, using recycled cardboard and eggs container, the children created tiny cute turtles.
As the weather was fine, we continued the workshop on the beach. Through a game named “hunters”, we tried to imitate the way in which chameleons catch their preys using their long sticky tongue. We also explored chameleons’ fascinating ability to communicate by changing the colour of their skin by asking kids to choose among some pieces of fabric the one that best represented their mood. This game helped to settle some small arguments between the children, as one of them chose red to express her anger towards another participant. Anyway, most of the children chose bright colours to show their happiness.
Through two other games, we understood different techniques used by some snakes to defend themselves and to kill their preys: constriction and injection of poisonous toxins.
At the end of the ecopatrol, we got to know a very common reptile, the lizard, and the strategies it uses to escape from dangers. We explored the mechanism of autotomy of self-amputation with which lizards lose their tails to distract predators, and the way in which they quickly hide in cracks when faced with threads.
See you next Saturday!
