Author: Peter Macinnis Publisher: National Library Australia ISBN: 0642277427 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 236
Book Description
This book is written by Peter Macinnis, the recipient of the Eve Pownall award in the 2010 Children's Book Council of Australia Awards for the sister publication, Australian Backyard Explorer. In Australian Backyard Naturalist, Peter enthusiastically explores the animals that inhabit the places in which we live, from the furry to the slimy, the large to the tiny. He keeps readers entertained with stories about his own adventures with Australias creepy crawlies and other creatures, as well as collectors and naturalists stories from the times of first European settlement to recent times.
Author: Peter Macinnis Publisher: National Library of Australia ISBN: 0642279349 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
Find out where rain comes from and what geysers look like! Read about soil becoming too salty and why greenhouse gases are increasing. Did you know that fog is a cloud sitting on the ground and that ice can tell you about the environment of millions of years ago? And what is lightning anyway? Australian Backyard Earth Scientist is full of fantastic photos and fascinating information that help explain different aspects of earth science - a science that discovered how old the Earth is, what fossils tell us, how mountains were created, what causes earthquakes, what the difference between weather and climate is, and why glaciers are melting. From the beginnings of the planet through to climate change, 'Australian Backyard Earth Scientist' includes interesting and fun facts and projects help develop an understanding and appreciation - like making your own fossils, collecting cloud types, and using tree rings to find out about past weather. Young readers can discover the influences that have fashioned our earth - and are still acting to change it.
Author: Peter Macinnis Publisher: Peter Macinnis ISBN: Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
The notion of a vade mecum (it literally means "go with me") has largely disappeared from use, but this ebook is a guide for strangers and locals to carry on phone or tablet when they visit one of Australia's biological wonders, a place where 500 species of plant live on 250 hectares (a square mile in old currency) of desperately poor sandy soil, along with an amazing range of animal and other life forms. The vade mecum is back! People entering Sydney Harbour or taking a ferry to Manly see North Head to starboard, and admire the 80-metre cliffs, but they don't realise that they are looking at a sand-tied island, a piece of rock which is over 200 million years old, and even the locals don't know that we have so many plant species growing there, not to mention ants, pythons, butterflies, weevils, water dragons, ticks, birds, possums, dragonflies, bandicoots, echidnas, tree snakes, lichens, stick insects, snails, spiders, lichens, fungi, colourful bacteria, bird of paradise flies, ant lions, frogs and much more on the 10,000-year-old sandhills that formed in the last Ice Age. Peter Macinnis is biology-trained and cares about rocks, but prefers to call himself a naturalist, and he has played on, and walked over, the headland for more than 70 years (how much more, he won't say, admitting only to being of advanced middle age). This is a revised version (August 2024) of a print book, optimised for reading on your mobile phone or tablet. He has worked as a volunteer on land care projects on North Head since 2013, and his photos of his finds fill this book. He knows where the bodies are buried — and they aren't all in the Third Quarantine Cemetery! Peter wins awards when he writes for children, and while this book is written for teens and up, the clarity is there to allow eight-year-olds who resemble him at that age to learn a great deal about the rocks, plants, animals and lesser life forms, all of which may be found in this naturalists' wonderland.
Author: Tim Low Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300226802 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 437
Book Description
An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.
Author: James Kavanagh Publisher: Waterford Press ISBN: 9781583555767 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 32
Book Description
Featuring a wide variety of nature-related games, quizzes, and activities, these engaging activity books encourage curious children to have fun while exploring nature, wildlife, and natural sciences. Beautiful illustrations of typical Australian animals?including dingoes, wombats, kangaroos, koalas, and more?are used in this entertaining workbook to investigate the array of wildlife native to the Australian landscape.
Author: Jamon Alex Halvaksz Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 0824888790 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
From early explorers to contemporary scientists, naturalists have examined island flora and fauna of Oceania, discovering new species, carefully documenting the lives of animals, and creating work central to the image of Oceania. These “discoveries” and exploratory moves have had profound local and global impacts. Often, however, local knowledge and communities are silent in the ethologies and histories that naturalists produce. This volume analyzes the ways that Indigenous and non-Indigenous naturalists have made island natures visible to a wider audience, their relationship with the communities where they work, as well as the unique natures that they explore and help make. In staking out an area of naturalist histories, each contributor addresses the relationship between naturalists and Oceanic communities, how these histories shaped past and present place and practices, the influence on conservations and development projects, and the relationship between scientific and indigenous knowledge. The essays span across colonial and postcolonial frames, tracing shifts in biological practice from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century focus on taxonomy and discovery to the twentieth-century disciplinary restructurings and new collecting strategies, and contemporary concerns with biodiversity loss, conservation, and knowledge formation. The production of scientific knowledge is typically seen in ethnographic accounts as oppositional, contrasting Indigenous and western, local and global, objective and subjective. Such dichotomous views reinforce differences and further exaggerate inequities in the production of knowledge. More dangerously, value distinctions become embedded in discussions of Indigenous identity, rights, and sovereignty. Contributors acknowledge that these dichotomous narratives have dominated the approach of the scientific community while informing how social scientists have understood the contributions of Pacific communities. The essays offer a nuanced gradient as historical narratives of scientific investigation, in dialogue with local histories, and reveal greater levels of participation in the creation of knowledge. The volume highlights how power infuses the scientific endeavor and offers a distinct and diverse view of knowledge production in Oceania. Combining senior and emerging international scholars, the collection will be of interest to researchers in the social sciences, history, as well as biology and allied fields.
Author: Sue Baker Publisher: Balboa Press ISBN: 1452531242 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 309
Book Description
Educational childrens bookonAustralian animals. Afresh approachcombining factand the hilarious adventures of The Pobblebonk Earth Detective Club. Designed to show learning is fun. Aimed at 10-14 year olds it encourages children to investigate questions, carry out imaginative earth detective activities, that can also be used by teachers, and develop a life-long interest in learning. Quizzes with country flag mapsare designed to develop knowledge of the world and its place geography. The book tells the story of the three somewhat off-beat Mathieson children, who forced to move to their grannys farm, fight off their loneliness and boredom by becoming amateur detectives, launching into a series of bizarre adventures in the process. Their cases take them deep into the world of animal tracks and scats, and native Australian animals including marsupials, frogs, crocodiles, rats and mice, a range of lesser-known animals and the unique character of Australia itself. The book provides references to high quality useful websites for children to carry out further research. Literacy is stressed through a variety of methods with all technical terms highlighted and clearly explained.
Author: Ian Fraser Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING ISBN: 1486307469 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 261
Book Description
Everywhere we go there are birds, and they all have mysteries to be unravelled. These mysteries include the way they look, from bizarre to apparently mundane, why they live where they live, and the things they do, many of which are far too incredible ever to be imagined as fiction. Birds in Their Habitats is a collection of stories and experiences, which introduce fascinating aspects of birdlife, ecology and behaviour. Informed by a wealth of historical and contemporary research, Ian Fraser takes the reader on a journey through four continents: from places as unfamiliar as the Chonos Archipelago of southern Chile and the arid Sahel woodlands of northern Cameroon to those as familiar as a suburban backyard. This is a book of discovery of birds and the places they live. And with humour and personal insight, it is a book about the sometimes strange world of the people who spend a life absorbed in birds.
Author: Tim Flannery Publisher: Black Inc. ISBN: 1921870834 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 128
Book Description
Australia is home to many animals and plants found nowhere else on earth, making Australians caretakers of a unique heritage in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Yet, in After the Future, Tim Flannery shows that this country is now on the brink of a new wave of extinctions, which threatens to leave our national parks as “marsupial ghost towns.” Why are species becoming extinct despite the tens of millions of dollars being spent to protect nature? And what more should be done? In this passionate and illuminating essay, Flannery tells the story of the human impact on the continent. He revisits his Future Eaters hypothesis, discussing how firestick farming helped to shape the ecology and preserve native fauna. He looks at the way recent governments, in tandem with an indifferent populace and a rabid libertarian right, have let environmental knowledge and commitments erode. Finally, he describes new approaches to wildlife conservation and argues that Australia must take the lead on these. This is an essay that rings the alarm on behalf of the natural world, and asks us to think again about protection of its irreplaceable riches. ‘Such is the depth of public ignorance about Australia’s extinction crisis that most people are unaware that it is occurring, while those who do know of it commonly believe that our national parks and reserves are safe places for threatened species. In fact the second extinction wave is now in full swing, and it’s emptying our national parks and wildlife reserves as ruthlessly as other landscapes.’ —Tim Flannery, After the Future ‘Flannery is known as a passionate advocate for conservation, but rarely has he sounded so angry.’ —Fiona Capp, Sydney Morning Herald ‘He's a scientist of world standing, a prolific and bestselling writer, a noted explorer, passionate about the Australian environment, and believes global warming is a calamitous crisis facing us all. Tim Flannery is also a controversial, outspoken stirrer who promises ... to tread on toes if he has to, to get his blunt views across.’ –Kerry O'Brien, The 7:30 Report
Author: Bridget Griffen-Foley Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030546373 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 173
Book Description
This lively and accessible book charts how Australian audiences have engaged with radio and television since the 1920s. Ranging across both the commercial and public service broadcasting sectors, it recovers and explores the lived experiences of a wide cross-section of Australian listeners and viewers. Offering new perspectives on how audiences have responded to broadcast content, and how radio and television stations have been part of the lives of Australians, over the past one hundred years, this book invites us into the dynamic world created for children by the radio industry, traces the operations of radio and television clubs across Australia, and uncovers the workings of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s viewers’ advisory committees. It also opens up the fan mail received by Australian broadcasting stations and personalities, delves into the complaints files of regulators, and teases out the role of participants and studio audiences in popular matchmaking programs.
Author: Peter Macinnis
Author: Peter Macinnis
Author: Peter Macinnis
Author: Tim Low
Author: James Kavanagh
Author: Jamon Alex Halvaksz
Author: Sue Baker
Author: Ian Fraser
Author: Tim Flannery
Author: Bridget Griffen-Foley