Hi everyone
I am coming home! I have said goodbye to all the ecocentre staff for now.

My bag is packed! My friend gave me a cat. I call her smudgy. She wants to come with me. Wonder if I can take her with me or should I let her go out into the wild? What do you think?

Can’t wait to find out where I am going to visit next!

Ricky

I have been feeling a little homesick lately, but I am glad I have stayed in Australia now. Everyone is saying today will be really exciting, with lots of things going on.

I have never heard of Australia Day before so I am going to look on the internet to find out about it.

It says today is the day that the first fleet of British ships reached Australia in 1788. That was over 200 years ago! Now each year on the 26th January everyone here celebrates what’s great about Australia and being Australian.

There are lots of different ways to get involved, you can find out more at www.australiaday.org.au

Everyone I am staying with has got a day off today, and they are all looking forward to celebrating. We are going to the beach. They have told me we might even see some fireworks later. I can’t wait!

Are you celebrating Australia Day?

It’s time for a really big celebration. It’s the centenary of Scott’s British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition to the South Pole.

The story has a very sad ending. You can find out more by watching this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiVstIvgNFo&feature=related

There are lots of things happening to celebrate Scott’s big adventure http://www.scott100.org

What a big coincidence. I met a a lady called Sophie Weeks who really likes Antarctica just like me! She knows all about Scott. I think she works at the Scott Polar Research Institute http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/about/ . I wonder if she does experiments too. I don’t think they will be as exciting as the ones that we did together when I went on my adventure. Heres a picture of me with Sophie and Brenda.

You could write an exciting story or poem about Scott’s adventure. If you do please send me a copy. I can add any good ones in my Antarctica blog.

Back to the bush!

Ricky

Hi everyone and especially Jo who talked about polar bears and why Antarctica is called that.

Benny sent me a text at last. Don’t know what took him so long. Here it is.
Hi Rick Kim right polar bears in arctic only. antarctic means no (ant) arctic (Greek word for bear) – how about that!

So now we know! He didn’t say anything about penguins at the North Pole so I looked it up on Wiki and it says they are only in the south. So it all fits together – bears north and penguins south – wowee!

PS Just had another post from that nice lady Jo. This is what she said. I’ll reply shortly. If you have got any ideas perhaps you can help me.

wow, thank you Ricky, your answer is really interesting. I also think you are very lucky to be able to base your answers and comments on real observations- it makes it so real and very exciting.I think this is another type of scientific enquiry, do you agree, or do you think scientific enquiry is just about doing experiments and making measurements? Jo

Even though I have been back from Antarctica for quite a while, I am still getting really interesting post about it. Jo wrote to try to help me work out why it is called Antarctica (See my post called ‘Why is it called Antarctica?’ posted on Feb 27th 20ll.)

This is what Jo wrote.
hello Ricky, I met you at the Annual ASE conference earlier on and loved your website so much, that I decided to have another look. I found your comment about Arctic coming from a word meaning penguin. Somebody else told me that it comes from a word meaning ‘bears’. They also thought that the ‘ant’ part of the word means against, so Antarctic would mean against or not suitable for bears. I was wondering if this could be true, and to help me decide I wondered if you saw any bears when you were in Antacrtica. i look forward to your reply!
Jo

I met my friends Kim and Benny in the shelter today. We had a chat about bears and the Antarctic. We had a big discussion.

Benny is sure that there are bears in Antarctica. He said they are called polar bears because they live in polar regions. Kim said that there are only bears in the Arctic. I didn’t see any bears at all, not even at the South Pole. In fact I didn’t see much that was alive, except people! There were penguins, but only near the sea. So Kim and I think you might be right Jo. Benny said he was going to look at his videos of’ Life in The Freezer again because it showed polar bears and where they were living. I’ll let you know what he says. He might even write a post!

Ricky

Hi Everyone

I have been really busy learning about going out into the Bush to look for animals.

Here is a picture of me and my friends with a shelter. Wonder how useful it will be in the Bush? It was great fun making it.

I’ve also been to Uluru. Here’s two pictures that I took.

Class 2LW said that it looks different colours during different times of the day. They are right! I have replied to their post to tell them why I think that happens. I wonder if anyone else agrees with me. Class 2LW also had some great ideas about sunglasses too. Thank you 2LW.

Everyone is busy getting ready for Christmas now so I think this might be my last post before Father Christmas arrives. I’ll keep checking my blog just in case someone needs an answer. Hope Father Christmas will know where to find me this year.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and I will be back in the New Year.

Ricky