Unit 03 - Striped Possum’s Midnight Feast

1. Introduction
2. Background
3. Vocabulary and Definitions

1. Introduction

Unit 3 Striped Possum’s Midnight Feast and Unit 2 Bush Turkey’s Party are integrated role play and social activities designed to introduce young children to the concept of animal biodiversity in north Queensland rainforests. The purpose of Striped Possum’s Midnight Feast is to generate knowledge of a range of fascinating animals that are active in a Wet Tropics rainforest during the night. The feast event develops conceptual understanding of animal biodiversity through inquiry, dramatic play and visual arts.

Children create a midnight feast, hosted by Striped Possum, to learn about nocturnal (night-time) rainforest animals. The feast is held in school hours and the time of midnight imagined by the class. There are many animals in a rainforest that live cryptic, or hidden, lives and children may at first be unfamiliar with the nocturnal animals who are invited to the feast. A suggested guest list of nocturnal rainforest animals is provided which includes vertebrates and invertebrates, small and large animals, predators and prey.

A full explanation of the activity and planning stages is found in Learning Resources and curriculum links are found on the Teacher's Page.

Structured information and images of each party animal are available for early readers and beginning researchers on the Resources Page.

Scroll down this page or click the link to find a full Vocabulary list with definitions of terms

2. Background

In comparison with other regions in Australia, the Wet Tropics is extraordinarily rich in its diversity of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. The Wet Tropics is home to 35% of Australia’s mammal species, 28% of frog species, 58% of butterfly species, 40% of bird species and 42% of freshwater fish species. The Wet Tropics contains some of the most important natural areas for the variety of life on the planet.

In 1988, when the Queensland Wet Tropics were designated as a World Heritage Area, it was one of a few international sites which met all four natural criteria. The rainforests of north Queensland are highly important to the conservation of the world’s diversity of plant and animal life.

Young children learn through active engagement and play. Once children are introduced to the concept of diversity of life in a rainforest, they begin to appreciate the value of World Heritage and the importance of the Wet Tropics in conserving animal and plant diversity in Australia.

Striped Possum’s Midnight Feast is not a didactic teaching method, but a structured social and participatory activity designed to engage young children with the concept of animal diversity. Primarily, this activity is a lot of fun and it serves to teach children about many of the rare, endangered and unique nocturnal animals of the forest. The meaning and purpose of animal conservation will emerge in children’s thinking.

3. Definitions and Vocabulary

Bio- a prefix meaning “life”
Diversity – a variety of things
Species – a group of living organisms which resemble each other and interbreed to produce offspring
Animal – a living organism that moves and has to eat food to survive
Plant – a living organism that makes its own food from water and carbon dioxide by photosynthesis, a chemical process which captures the energy of sunlight
Herbivore – an animal that feeds on plants (a plant eater)
Omnivore – an animal that eat many kinds of food (eats both plants and animals)
Carnivore – an animal that feeds on the flesh of other animals (a flesh eater)
Predator – an animal that hunts and eats other animals
Prey – an animal that is hunted and eaten by predators
Diurnal – an animal that is active during the day
Nocturnal – an animal that is active during the night
Vertebrate – an animal with a skull and an internal skeleton made of bone or cartilage
Invertebrate – an animal without a backbone; can have an external skeleton (exoskeleton) or no skeleton at all; is not a vertebrate
Mammal – a warm blooded furry animal; young mammals drink milk from their mother
Bird – warm blooded animal with feathers and wings; lays eggs with shells
Reptile – cold blooded, scaly animal such as a snake, turtle or crocodile
Amphibian – cold blooded, soft skinned animal that lays eggs in water; the young metamorphose from larvae and tadpoles into air breathing adults, such as a frog
Fish – a cold blooded, scaly animal that lives completely in water and breathes oxygen from water through its gills
Arthropod – an invertebrate animal with a jointed body
Insect – an arthropod with six legs, a pair of antennae and three body sections, such as a fly or beetle
Arachnid – an arthropod with eight legs, such as a spider
Crustacean – an arthropod with ten legs such as a slater, yabbie, crab or lobster
Myriapod – a land-living arthropod with many body segments. A centipede has one pair of legs per body segment and a millipede has two pairs of legs per body segment.
Mollusc – an unsegmented, soft bodied animal with a muscular foot that can have a shell, such as a slug, snail, squid or octopus
Placental – a type of mammal that gives birth to fully developed live young, such as a rat, bat, cat and human
Marsupial – a type of mammal that raises immature young in a pouch, such as a possum, tree kangaroo, sugar glider, quoll or antechinus
Monotreme – a type of mammal that lays eggs; there are only two monotremes, these are the duck-billed platypus and the echidna
Endemic – only lives in this place, is found nowhere else in the world