A beautiful painting created by Harish Rokhade of Class IV

How much do you know about Animals? Lots? How about their Tails?........Try this fun quiz .

Answers are below

Flight is a subject that has always fascinated children. Hence school kids are encouraged to build parachutes. 

How to make one yourself 

Take a plastic sheet measuring one square foot and tie strings to its four corners. The free ends of the strings be tied together to a light weight, box or bell. Make a small hole at the centre of the plastic sheet. Now you have a scaled down model of the parachute.

Take your parachute to the top of a high building and drop it. The air drag causes the parachute to fly down smoothly. The larger the umbrella of the parachute, the greater the drag on it.

          Soil that is rich in organic matter will grow healthier grains and vegetables. Earthworms are the major agents in transformation of dirt into soil.

To study this transformation as it happens, the 4th and 5th standard children took up a project - building up a miniature earthworm habitat.

Materials required : A glass or plastic jar, gravel, sand, garden soil, compost or humus, chopped leaves and hay, black paper, tape, rubber bands, earthworms and water.

Procedure :
  1.     Fill the jar with gravel (3 cm), garden soil (2 cm), sand (3 cm), compost or humus (3 cm) and again sand (1 cm), one over the other. Spray each layer with water as you fill up. It should keep the different layers moist. Any excess water will get collected in the bottom layer.

2.     Now put a top layer of chopped leaves, hay and dead plant leaves to a height of 2 cms and sprinkle some water.

3.     Add 3 or 4 earthworms.

4.     Cut a sheet of black paper in circular shape and cover the top of the jar. Fix it with the tape. Make some pin holes in the lid for air circulation. Cover the sides of the bottle with a black sheet of paper and a few rubber bands.

5.     Every day take out the black paper and the lid and observe carefully. Don't forget to sprinkle some water before covering with black paper.
  6.     Study for 8 to 10 days. Write down your observations everyday.

You will look for :

1.     Any visible trails of earthworm movement.

2.     The movement of the earthworms through different layers mixing them up - this leads to aeration.

3.     Decomposition of the dead matter, turning it into rich compost.

4.     The worms eat the soil and vegetable matter and then pass them out.

Things to know :

Earthworms render the soil very rich. They help in distributing nutrients evenly throughout the soil. They mix the soil as they push their way through the soil. They eat decaying matter near the surface of the soil and excrete in deeper layers. An acre of soil may have as many as a million earthworms.

- Arunkumar G.N.