pelf-ism is contagious

One of the fun-nest things about conducting turtle camps is that you will never know what to expect from the students.

I was quite surprised to learn, in one of the earlier camps, that there are Year 5 and 6 students who actually can’t read or write. Nevermind the fact that only a handful of them could read the two simple English poems during the camp, some students don’t even remember their father’s name! Some students couldn’t spell their names correctly, and I have a feeling some others don’t even know why we were there, in their school, in the first place!

But despite all those “surprising findings”, there were also a handful of students who were clearly above the others. Like those students who produced the following posters:

The poster above shows a little boy holding a hatchling on his right hand, and cuddling a juvenile turtle with his left hand. The wordings actually read “I Penyu & Tuntung”, which I thought was very creative. The drawing is very sharp, and the colours very attractive. Can you see the turtle hatchling emerging from the egg??

The second poster, I believe, was drawn very meticulously. The students remembered very clearly that leatherback turtles feed on jellyfish, green turtles on sea grasses and hawksbill turtles on sponges. Seriously, these are only 11 and 12 year old students!

The third poster shows the threats that our turtles are facing — a turtle is trapped in a fisherman’s net, a turtle is consuming a plastic bag, which it mistakes as a jellyfish, and there are rubbish on the sea floor.

Next up, I’ve got pictures of beautiful sea creatures that the students made from plasticine!

So yeah, I know I haven’t really been around but I can’t help it. I planned my turtle camps a week from each other but due to some unforeseen circumstances, the first two camps at SK Mangkok and SK Pulau Redang were held on 6 consecutive days. And that REALLY explains why you’re seeing cobwebs on this blog

The first turtle camp at SK Mangkok were held on 3 consecutive afternoons because there were classes in the mornings. We traveled from the university to the school during lunch and carried out our turtle-related activities until about 5pm before heading back to campus.

There were about 43 participants which comprised of Standard 5 and 6 students. We put up a very simple exhibition which consisted of a set of specially designed and printed A3 posters, some specimens and a taxidermied hawksbill turtle.

We didn’t have enough time for all our activities and games but the essential ones were carried out, e.g. they drew posters, we had a quiz, some performances, and most importantly, everybody promised not to eat turtle and terrapin eggs for the rest of their lives!

The second turtle camp was held in Redang Island, from Thursday to Saturday. There were altogether 70 participants but this group of students were more easily managed than the earlier group. But that was probably because the two accompanying teachers were often checking them out to make sure that they behaved themselves

There are 2 more turtle camps, one in Perhentian Island and the final camp will be at SK Penarik in Setiu. Till then, I don’t think I would have time for decent blog posts, but I know you will be entertained by my cutie pie sister

P/S: You may also pledge NOT to eat turtle and terrapin eggs for the rest of your life here. We are hoping to collect 1 million signatures by February 2009.

How often do you get your picture on the front page of a website?

OK, OK, I know I have been missing for a while. How are YOU doing? How did your weekend go?