Endangered Species Project Blog (2/12-2/16)



Summary:

African forest elephants are very important to both the ecosystem that they live in and the African tribes that live there. Elephants help with many things from soil condition, to Africa's culture. The elephant droppings help improve the soil condition and crops in Africa. They also help the ecosystems with seed dispersal for animals such as monkeys and birds, who eat the seeds and nuts from the elephant droppings. Africa's elephants also help other animals survive by pulling down trees and bushes, which help create clear areas for other animals and organisms to live in. These elephants help tribes, as well as other organisms, access clean water by creating water holes to drink from. As well as being important to the ecosystem and organisms in its environment, African Forest Elephants are very important towards African culture. Across Africa, these elephants are a sign of leaders and are shown in jewelry and other items. According to save the elephants, “Across Africa they have inspired respect from the people that share the landscape with them, giving them a strong cultural significance."

 If African forest elephants are so important to their ecosystem, then why are they endangered? These elephants are threatened by both deforestation and illegal poaching. The poachers kill the elephants for their ivory tusks and skin to sell.  According to a recent study, these illegal poachers have killed about 100,000 African elephants in just three years. That is a lot, considering how many of these elephants are left in Africa today. According to National Geographic, "During 2011 alone, roughly one of every twelve African elephants was killed by a poacher." They are also decreasing because of habitat destruction such as deforestation, which results in less food and shelter, which they need to survive.


Backward-Looking

How much did you know about the subject before we started?

Before we started, I knew little about endangered species and why it is important we know about them. However, I did not know anything about African Forest Elephants and why they are considered an endangered species. I also did not realize how important these elephants are to their ecosystem and what Africa's forests would look without these amazing elephants. Something that surprised me that I never realized or thought about before is that there are so many endangered species in the world, not only those we know about.

Inward-Looking

How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I feel pretty good about this piece of work because we took a lot of time on it and we made sure that we completed everything that was required. I liked how we were able to use many websites to help us, such as infographic makers and thinglinks to show our work. I felt like we did not manage our time very well because I felt like we were rushing when it was very close to the due date. I enjoyed how we got to create websites and infographics to learn more about our endangered species. This also helped us understand the other group's species when we were presenting to the class.

Outward-Looking

Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

We did our work the way that other people did theirs because many groups made websites as well to show all of their analyzed information. However, we did have different species, so the research in our infographics was organized differently to relate to each endangered animal. Our work or process was similar because everyone had a team role and way that they had to contribute to their group. Everyone was also required to create an infographic, and many of us used the same infographic maker to do so. Overall, each group's final product was unique and different based on their endangered species. 

Forward-Looking

What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this piece over again, I would spend more time on the website so that each of the pages was easy to understand and had everything related to our endangered species. I would also spend more time on our timeline of endangerment so that it helped the reader understand more about elephant conservation. There is nothing big that I would change in this project because we spent a lot of time on it and I feel that we completed this project to our best effort.

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