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I was at a park recently with my niece and I was showing her the pictures that I have taken, Naturally, she asked me what was the species was the plant or bird or animal. That left me stumped. I mean that I can tell that a fairly large bird with pointed beak is most likely a predator. That is still pretty vague as it still includes Eagles, Falcons, Kites and Hawks. In case you are clueless like me the birds listed differ in both size and wing shape.
So what if nothing you see matches the pictures on the internet? (I tried Google Image and the answer was bird.) Or if it matches several different species? I am grateful for the government to have websites and notice boards for different animals but I often find that I do not recognise 50% of the denizens in the nature reserve.
If this is not hard enough, telling different species of plants apart is even worse. I got lucky with the Cannon ball tree. The rest of the time, the tree's shape is hard to tell in the jungle or swamp. (The tree's neighbours are always photo bombing.) I can tell by the leaves, flowers or fruits but they have to be unique and fairly distinct.
The most interesting part is that even I identify the information correctly, I need to be ready to revise it. Once upon a time, people assumed that Bonobos and Chimpanzees were the same species. We also assumed that grasshoppers and locusts were different species. Apparently grasshopper can breed locusts.
So why all this hard work teaching children? Why not just lie to them and feed them some half-truth?
So what if nothing you see matches the pictures on the internet? (I tried Google Image and the answer was bird.) Or if it matches several different species? I am grateful for the government to have websites and notice boards for different animals but I often find that I do not recognise 50% of the denizens in the nature reserve.
If this is not hard enough, telling different species of plants apart is even worse. I got lucky with the Cannon ball tree. The rest of the time, the tree's shape is hard to tell in the jungle or swamp. (The tree's neighbours are always photo bombing.) I can tell by the leaves, flowers or fruits but they have to be unique and fairly distinct.
The most interesting part is that even I identify the information correctly, I need to be ready to revise it. Once upon a time, people assumed that Bonobos and Chimpanzees were the same species. We also assumed that grasshoppers and locusts were different species. Apparently grasshopper can breed locusts.
So why all this hard work teaching children? Why not just lie to them and feed them some half-truth?
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