What is an Ecosystem?

Imagine a bubble where the living and non-living co-exist and work together to get things going. Essentially, an ecosystem is an area where plants, organisms, animals, and other abiotic or non-living things thrive in a landscape under the influence of weather, temperature, and humidity.

Interdependency is an important factor that enables the ecosystem to function and continue its perpetuity by benefiting all the inhabitants. In a scenario where the temperature in the ecosystem changes, it directly has an impact on the plants, and when plants are adversely affected, animals depending upon plants for food and shelter are in-turn influenced negatively or positively. The only option to thrive in an ecosystem is to continuously adapt to the changes or move to another ecosystem, instead of perishing.

Types of Ecosystems

An ecosystem is based on the type of region, especially land or water. Majorly it can be classified as;

• Terrestrial Ecosystem
• Aquatic Ecosystem

Terrestrial Ecosystem –

Forest: Almost 1/3rd of Earth’s surface is covered in forests and they flourish under different weather conditions such as; dry, wet, and cold. This terrestrial ecosystem includes deciduous forests, plantation forests, and tropical rain forests, as they are home to different birds, animals, and other diverse species of plants and animals.

Grasslands: Grasslands occur where there is not too much rainfall to culminate a forest, but neither too scanty a rainfall that it becomes a desert. So, it is somewhat in-between a desert and a forest. Grasslands are covered with shrub-like vegetation and are found all across the world. Many types of wild animals such as; lions, zebras, elephants, etc. are found in grasslands.

Tundra: Cold regions of the Arctic and other high-altitude mountainous areas feature the tundra ranges. Tundra has large patches of bare grasslands with rocks and low vegetation such as moss, lichens, herbs, and shrubs. The surface is mostly covered in snow all through the year.

Desert: A desert, as we know it, is a region that has very scanty vegetation. The temperature in the desert area can be either extremely hot or extremely cold, or hot during the day and chilly at night, thereby making it unfavorable for vegetation to thrive. The most common desert plants that survive in these harsh conditions include; cactus, acacia, and date palm. Reptiles such as snakes and lizards are usually found in deserts.

Aquatic Ecosystem –

This includes water bodies such as; lakes, oceans, seas, rivers, which are home to amphibians, fish, sea creatures, and aquatic plants. Since 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, the aquatic ecosystem is larger than the terrestrial ecosystem. An aquatic ecosystem is further classified into two categories namely; marine ecosystem and freshwater ecosystem. The marine ecosystem includes oceans and seas where sharks, seals, walrus, and other sea creatures thrive. The freshwater ecosystem is made up of rivers, lakes, ponds, and water bodies that are fresh or non-salted. The most common freshwater fish are; rohu, prawn, hilsa, and Indian carp, amongst others.

The Food Chain

A food chain is nothing but the transfer of energy in the form of food from one organism to the other. Green plants are capable of producing their own food with the help of photosynthesis. Hence, plants are classified as producers in the food chain. Humans and animals have to depend upon plants and other animals for their food, and hence this area is categorized as consumers. Decomposers such as fungi, bacteria, insects, break down the waste products and tissues of plants & animals which are absorbed in the soil and serve as nutrition to the plants. Hence the food chain is basically the unison between producers, consumers, and decomposers, providing nutrients to each other. The Food Chain can be further classified into three categories; grazing food chain, saprophytic or detritus food chain, and parasitic food chain.

What Students will learn with Carolina’s Building Blocks of Science® 3D: Life in Ecosystems (©2019) 1 Literacy set:

• Students make models discover that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles, but what’s common amongst them is birth, growth, reproduction, and death.
• Analyze data to find evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from their parents and some variation of traits exists in a group of similar organisms.
• Experiment and support evidence that traits can be influenced by the environment.
• Analyze and interpret data from fossils to trace their existence long ago.
• Find out why in a given habitat some organisms can survive well, others struggle to survive, and yet others perish.

Carolina has specially designed this kit for Grade 3 students and offers 5 lessons across 15 class sessions under the Building Blocks of Science® 3D unit Life in Ecosystems kit. Schools that follow the k-12 curriculum and IB culture benefit manifold from the kit and most institutes in GCC Countries in the Middle East avail the lab kits for students to practice hands-on lessons. The unit includes the following – a teacher’s guide, on-grade student readers, access to online digital resources, apparatus, and lab supplies sufficient for a class of 30 students, amongst other support materials.

To learn more about other such interesting Building Blocks of Science® 3D unit kits by Carolina for those in the UAE, including Dubai, head to our website.

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When we hear the word animation, doesn’t it magically transport us into the imaginary world of our most loved characters? Thinking of some of our favorites like Aladdin, Alice, Chip and Dale, Cinderella, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, and plenty more, they truly take us a trip down memory lane as we relive our childhood.

The world-renowned animator and the magnificent creator of these characters, Walt Disney once said, “Animation offers a medium of story-telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.” Animation does get one to dream and build a zillion illusions. 

So, what does it actually do that gets us fascinated? Animation is a technique in which still figures are made to move at certain frames per second that lead to an illusion of continuous motion. Earlier, animations were initially shown in analogue mode through TV and video players, and Flash and Gif techniques were used. Since the time animation has been invented, it has progressed by leaps and bounds and has evolved digitally.  

Now the electronic instruments play the animation in the digital mode. Presently, most of the animation work is done through CGI which is computer-generated imagery. 2D computer animation is used for low bandwidth and faster real-time renderings.

3D animation is much advanced and is done with a heavy amount of detailing. Usually, cut-outs of paper, clay figurines, and puppets are used and these objects in 2D and 3D are recorded and then played in a sequential manner.

The animation effect is applied to them by moving them in that desired sequence but the transition between the images is extremely quick and it is so fast that the human being cannot possibly make out that transition with the naked eye. Under the animation umbrella, there is tremendous more to learn such as animation through motion graphics, stop motion animation, collage imagination, rotoscoping, etc.

Animation is widely consumed in Dubai, UAE, in the Middle East and GCC countries, across the West and Asian zones, and basically almost across the globe mainly for entertainment purposes. Children are crazily excited when an animated show or movie is about to be released. Likewise, adults too love watching animated content.

Animation is a booming business and is present in areas of advertising, architecture, creative arts, education, engineering, entertainment, gaming, in scientific visualization, manufacturing, marketing, medicine, retail, simulations and many more.

Hence there are now a considerable amount of bright young people getting into animation to build their fantastic careers and further ignite their creative geniuses and churn out amazing creations. Does this give you a spark to explore and learn animation?

Firstly, let us get you acquainted with commonly used terms in animation which are:

1.      Timeline

This is the major element that depicts the animation’s progress with time and it largely depends on the software of the user that utilises the timeline to make changes to the timing used in the animation according to the placing of the objects.

2.      Frame Rate

This is an adjustable setting in any animation software but the usual animation is done in 24 frames per second which is better known as FPS. It is basically the number of images or frames that are shown over the period of that one second.

3.      Working on One’s and Two’s

The first is making a new drawing over every single frame of animation and the second is holding any drawing for two frames, so one second of animation at 24 frames per second would only be 12 drawings, not 24.

4.      Shots and Scenes

This refers to one specific continuous piece of animation in between camera cuts.

5.      Keyframes

These are also referred to as keys in the animation drawings which are important poses that define a particular scene.

6.      Breakdowns

These come between keys and define what the motion from key to key will be.

7.      In-betweens

These are all the frames that come in between to smooth out the motion.

8.      Timing

This means the total number of frames that will be used for a movement.

9.      Spacing

This is the amount of change that comes between each frame. Decreasing the spacing makes an object slower, while increasing the spacing makes it look faster.

10.  Easing

This is how spacing is controlled, usually through a motion graph on the timeline.

11.  Onion Skinning

This lets the animator see semi-transparent representations of the frames behind or ahead of the current frame one is working on.

12.  Compositing

It is the process of putting all the individual pieces of a scene together to create the final visual output.

Now let us look at the major guidelines in animation which are:

1.      Squash and Stretch

Squash means the object is getting compressed by an impact of an opposing force. Stretch means when the object is expanded by something pulling on it, or by moving quickly.

2.      Anticipation

This describes a smaller movement that comes before a major one, and signals that the major movement is going to happen.

3.      Staging

It is presenting the shot in such a way that makes the content of the shot as clear and strong as possible.

4.      Straight Ahead in opposition to Pose to Pose

Both use different approaches to animation. While the former means to create each new frame in a sequence from beginning to end and the latter means to create the key poses for each action first, and then filling in the in-between poses.

5.      Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Both of these refer to the tendency of different parts of an object to move at different speeds.

6.      Slow in and Slow Out

This refers to the nature of the objects to gradually accelerate and then decelerate when moving from one position to another.

7.      Arcs

Under the rule of arcs, it is usually understood that living things do not move in straight lines, but rather in a curved fashion. When the arcs are elegant and clear it uplifts the animated item and shows the proficiency level of the animator.

8.      Secondary Action

This refers to the smaller movements that make the shot clearer by laying emphasis on the goal behind the movement. They support the primary actions of an object.

9.      Timing

This controls the speed of the action through the number of frames that are used to represent it.

10.  Exaggeration

This represents an object in the most extreme manner rather than being realistic to the animation.

11.  Solid Drawing

In this step, the objects are positioned in such a way that it creates a sense of volume, weight, and balance.

12.  Appeal

This describes the qualities and design of the character that makes it riveting to watch.

‘TechnoKids’ integrates technology into the curriculum using technology projects. They have published a collection with ready-made lessons. Each project includes a teacher guide, a student workbook, and customizable resources. The instructional materials are ideal for computer instructors, classroom teachers, home school educators, media specialists, and librarians. They blend the project-based activities into an existing curriculum unit, combine technology projects to form a course or teach a set of lessons as part of a workshop series. In their senior curriculum for high school students, they have ‘TechnoAnimate’ as a program that helps to create an animated space story with Adobe Animate CC lessons which is animation for beginners. They use motion tweens, shape tweens, motion paths to make scenes come alive.

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Abacus is better known as Abundant Beads, Addition, and Calculation Utility Systems. There are many ways to teach math to kids and the abacus happens to be one of them.  It is a manual calculating tool that dates back to as old as 2700-2300 BC. The abacus has been used by ancient traders and merchants across continents of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East including the UAE before the adoption of the written Arabic numeral system. Around the world, the abacus has been used in pre-school and elementary school to teach the numeral system and math. 

In the current day and age where electronic calculators and computers have a dominance, abacuses are used in many countries. We may question the need to use such a device when we have modern systems today. The answer to that is, much as children must avail the new technology but at the same time, we do not want them to completely rely on the latest gadgets and while they learn how to use a tool like an abacus, they are exercising their brain much more for analytical reasoning. It removes their fear of numbers from an early age. Moreover, a huge benefit of this tool is that it can be used by differently-abled visually impaired individuals.

The generic abacus is a colourful mechanical tool that attracts children, increases their knowledge of basic math operations, and is used to explain functions such as counting, addition, subtraction, and division. It can also explain fractions and help to find square and cube roots. The abacus comes in various sizes and is usually made of hardwood and some are made of plastic. The structural frame of the abacus has a series of vertical rods on which a number of colourful wooden beads can be made to slide freely strung on a wire. These beads are the ones that are attractive for the user. The beads are moved with the aid of the index finger or the thumb of any hand. Thumb and index are called butterfly fingers. A horizontal beam is the one that separates the mainframe of the abacus into two sections dividing them into unequal parts as the upper and lower deck.

Abacus is a Latin word that means flat surface. Each rod represents a different place value and each bead represents a number. These beads can be moved along the rods.  The sliding beads that represent numbers have a ones place, a tens place, a hundreds place, a thousands place, so on and so forth.

Beads are considered to be counted when they are moved towards the beam that separates both the decks. While these beads are fun for children, what they mainly do is, instill math concepts in their minds through their sense of touch and feel of the texture.

It strengthens their mental maths skills, improves concentration and visual memory, and boosts their confidence. There are about 8 levels in the abacus. These abacuses are easily available across kids’ shops and game stores in Dubai & GVV Countries, or around the world. Each abacus mostly contains approx. 100 beads and this tool is used with children generally aged 3 years and upwards.

Value 0 is depicted by the way the beads of the abacus are arranged in such a manner that one knows its value is 0. They will be in their original position, meaning that no beads will be touching the horizontal beam. The heaven beads will be upwards on the top and the earth beads will be downwards at the bottom. So, by just one glance at the abacus tool, the child knows the value is 0 and now it can start moving the beads to count or perform math calculations.

Counting on the abacus works on the base ten system. This method is mostly followed everywhere. From right to left with the rows of beads below the horizontal dividing beam, we count as ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on. For E.g., If you push 3 beads on the first row, up to the horizontal beam, you indicate number 3 on the abacus. Then, if you push 3 beads on the second row up to the horizontal beam, you have indicated number 30 on the abacus.

Addition on the abacus can be explained with an easy task of adding three-digit numbers together. For E.g., 342 + 125. To get the answer we would need to move below the horizontal beam, 2 beads on the ones row, 4 beads on the tens row and 3 beads on the hundreds row. To add 125, we would need to move 1 more hundred bead, 2 tens beads, and 5 one’s beads.

Similarly, subtraction is explained with simple two-digit numbers. For E.g., 100 – 50. To get the answer for this we would need to take 5 tens from 100. The tens column shows 0 tens. We need to then borrow 5 tens from the 100 column because it is a greater number. Since we borrowed 5 tens, we have to give away the abacus 5 tens. We can do this by bringing down the bead representing 50 and clearing the bead representing 100 on the third row. That brings us to 50 which is our answer. Going beyond, many other complex calculations can be performed on the abacus.

‘Mathseeds’ is discovering a fun way to grow your child’s math skills. It teaches kids aged 3 to 9 years, the core maths and problem-solving skills needed to be successful at school with highly interactive and rewarding lessons. ‘Mathseeds’ combines highly structured lessons with motivational elements that keep children engaged and keen to learn. Kids can start learning with ‘Mathseeds’ anytime and anywhere with a computer or a tablet.

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