These creatures use evaporative cooling
It’s the last excursion of the year and the children are all primed for another discovery adventure at Munibung Hill.
Tuesday 17th December, Woodrising Natural Learning Centre
We started our final trip to Munibung Hill for 2024 by revisiting the area we have been helping to maintain. We have seen so many changes to this area each time we visit. It has been amazing to observe this space in each different season and after periods of heavy rain.
This visit we wanted to check on the progress of the native plants that we had planted during our last visit. We were so surprised to see how much the space had been overtaken by weeds, some were even taller than us!
Our guide Gavin explained that now that the natives have had a chance to adjust, these weeds will support them by helping to retain water in the ground. We can continue to remove the weeds over time allowing the native plants to thrive. It has been incredible to observe how quickly this space can change in such a short amount of time.
The overwhelming volume of the cicadas along with the liquid we saw falling from the trees sparked our interest. Our guide Andy posed some questions about cicadas that really made us want to know more about them.
The children had their own questions: Do cicadas eat? Do they drink? Do they get hot? What trees do they go on? We had so many questions to find the answers to! Thankfully the cicadas were on almost every tree we passed so we had plenty of opportunities to observe them and learn more about them.
Through observation and further research, we were able to learn so much about these creatures that really make it feel like summer in Australia. Cicadas have developed the technique for evaporative cooling where they constantly drink the liquid sap from the tree and pass the fluid through their bodies just like a water-cooling system for a computer. They do this so they can remain out in the hot sun whilst their predators (birds, bats, spiders, wasps) are sheltering from the heat.
We then played a game where everyone had to find the most unique and interesting natural thing they could see. This helped us to slow down and focus as we used our ‘owl eyes’ to explore and look deeper at nature to really notice the extraordinary.
We finished our visit by everyone sharing their favourite memory of their time at Munibung Hill across the year.
It was amazing to reflect on all of our adventures, all of the changes we have observed and to realise how much we have grown too.
We are so grateful to our wonderful guides Gavin and Andy for everything they have done for us during this project but also for everything they continue to do for the community.
… From Issue #48 Feb-March 2025
