574-Project 1

Techonogy Requirements:
I have mentioned some of the technology I have used but I wanted to make sure I had a separate entry listing them so there was no confusion.

Note Taking:  I used NoteStar to collect notes about my subject.  This was an amazing new thing to learn and use.  I love it and plan on using it in the future to organize papers and projects...wish I had found this 2 years ago when I started my MLS.  (notestar.4teachers.org)

Ask-an-expert:  I used allexperts.com for this section.  I have copied and pasted my question and the answer I received.
Wild Animals/Answered Question


Expert: Jonathan Wright

Subject: Elephants

Question: When elephants are housed in zoos, do they create a herd including the other elephants already placed at the zoo? Do African and Asian elephants combine to create one herd since they are at a zoo and not in the wild, or would they create two seperate herds? Are the two types of elephants even aware the other is different?

Answer: Dear Nichole

Thank you for your question. I also wish to thank the authors of the websites I used.

It was quite common for African and Asian elephants to be kept in the same enclosure and this still occurs today (see http://blogs.sandiegozoo.org/blog/2009/03/16/elephants-a-zoo-family/). http://www.elephant.se/Motty_the_elephant_crossbreed.php?open=Living%20Elephant% shows that an African/Asian hybrid is possible, although the calf only survived for two weeks. Please note that elephants will accept elephants of a different species (I have seen this in various zoos), but the small group dos not really constitute a herd. Some new elephants are not accepted in a group, but this is the case with various animals and zoos often send these animals to other zoos. As far as I know, zoos do not keep large groups of African and Asian elephants in the sam enclosure. In fact, many zoos have been criticised because their enclosures are too small and it would be difficult to work out the herd structure in a cramped enclosure. I can't prove that elephants recognise that different elephants belong to different species, but as they are one of the few types of animals that recognise themselvs in their reflections, I am pretty sure that they would identify differences between their species.

Now elephants are usually kept in herds of Asian or African elephants and not in mixed groups. The herd of females have access to a male when they are ready to mate and breeding success has increased.

All the bst

Jonathn

I think this was a great resource and I am thinking about having my students use this to teach them another way of aquiring information.

Productivity Tool:  I am going to use Power Point as a way to present the information I found about elephants.  I am planning on using Oncourse's My Workspace to upload it and will place the link on my blog.

Bibliography: I am going to compile the sources I used into a Bibliography page so that if others want to visit the websites they can.  When it is complete, I will post it.