The short but yet meaningful and purposeful week was an extreme eye-opener, I did not expect to have gain so much, to be honest I even had a mindset before the start of the course that it was going to be a drag and tedious! Being an outdoor person, I have tendency to be inclined towards sports sabbatical however this sabbatical struck my interest as we were given opportunities to go outdoors too, in this case the Underwater World, Sungei Buloh and the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity at NUS.
Therefore, I decided to opt for a different alternative this time round, partly also due to the fact that we covered Ecology in class during Term 2 hence I could really understand the topic better. Thankfully, I made the right choice!
The first lesson was mainly focused on theory and we were given a plethora of notes. Later on, for most of the time the seniors presented their wonderfully prepared PowerPoint and cleared our doubts so that we will not be lost during our field trips. One of the topics that were covered by the seniors and also in class was the many different types of organism relationships ranging from parasitism, commensalism and mutualism to predation. This topic alone was very useful and it prepares me for my term 3 test which was coincidentally also on ecology. After listening to them, I’ve gained exuberant amount of knowledge, for example the mutualism relationship between the honey guide and the honey badger. The honey guide will fly around and find a bee’s hive and lead the honey badger to it. The honey badger then smashes the hive and both animals receive a meal of honey and bee larvae, thus showing the biological interactionbetween two organisms, where each individual derives benefit.
On Thursday, we were given the privilege to explore the Underwater World, Asia’s largest tropical oceanarium. Even though I have been there a few times already, I still never fail to get amazed by the many interesting sea creatures they house! We had a whale of time there. A creature that still remains vividly in my mind is the ‘Lion’s mane jellyfish’ as it is really GARGANTUAN. Based on research online, it says that the ‘Lion’s mane jellyfish’ is the largest known species and the largest recorded specimen has tentacles approximately about 37m long! The next day was a short trip to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity at NUS, I missed out an opportunity in primary school once therefore this was considered a valuable experience to me. The museum was filled with old artifacts that are sprayed with arsenic in order to be preserved for a long period of time. I was astonished by the ability to preserve the artifacts for such a period of time without even without wearing it. There was even a huge fish that is 3 meters long!
Through this sabbatical, I finally realized how beautiful that our nature can be and how rich it previously was. It is also disheartening to know that these creatures that we may currently have the chance to admire now might disappear in a few decades time and yet unable to do anything much as the entire world is undergoing rapid urbanization. On the other hand, I have made more friends from the pupils of outside of my consortium. This sabbatical is really amazing and awesome! Before the bidding for the next sabbatical starts, I will urge my friends to join this sabbatical and share with them the memories and experiences I had.
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