Fremont Middle School 6th grade

Once a year I do a special presentation for the Fremont Middle School 6th grade teams about my 2004 journey through Central and South America.

 

 

It is always a special program and I look forward to next year when I will be able to include this new adventure through the Amazon! 

Cheers,

Dean

Comments

[Abby]

Dear Mr. Jacobs
I am a second grader at Highland.I happen to love animals, especially cheetahs because they are very fast. I hope you like them too. I just want to say you are great at exploring!! So, good job! How big can monkeys get? We are learning about the Amazon Basin. I think its fun to learn. Also, How deep was the water that you rode on at the tip of that boat in the picture?

Abigail

[Mrs. Whitman]

Saving the Mountain Gorillas
By: Kenna R.

Why should we save the mountain gorillas in Rwanda? We should save them because there are only 782 mountain gorillas left in the entire world! The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International was founded by Dian Fossey. The research center was called the Karisoke Research Center. It got its name because it was in between two mountains. The Virunga Mountains is where the gorillas are found. This is a volcanic chain of mountains.
Male mountain gorillas are called silverbacks. When they get older the hair on their back turns silver. That is why they are called silverbacks. They can live up to 35 years in the wild. Adolescent males are called black backs. Gorillas live in families from 3-45 in a group. They are called knuckle walkers because they walk on their knuckles. They are 6 feet tall, and weigh about 450 to 500 pounds. Babies are born after 8.5 months and weigh about 4lbs at birth. 40% of the babies do not live. There are four different types of gorillas they are the western lowland gorillas. Average population is about 150,000 which is the highest population. The second type are the grauers. They live in the democratic republic of the congo. Average amount left is about 5000. The third type is the mountain gorillas. They don’t keep them in zoos because they are so rare. There are 782 left in the whole world! The last type is the cross-river gorillas. They are the rarest type of the gorillas. Total amount of these gorillas left is 200.
These gorillas are killed to make money which is really sad. They are poached or they used snares. Dian Fossey started an anti-poaching protest to save the gorillas. Then when the protest got really successful poachers put a bounty to her head and killed her, like a gorilla. She was assassinated and beheaded like a gorilla. Her death made poaching a world wide campaign and actually helped the gorillas more. She was a martyr. Then she was buried next to her friends, the gorillas.
The Rwandan people are taught how to make money by helping the gorillas instead of poaching them. The average Rwandan person makes $2.50 a day which is not enough to live on. Kids couldn’t go to school without a notebook or pen. We share 98% of our DNA with the gorillas. People and gorillas can coexist- learn from each other. Coffee is one of the chief exports of Rwanda. Instead of buying regular coffee, we can buy fare trade coffee and the Rwandan society will be able to make more money a day. Wasingya means thank you in the Rwandan language. Wasingya for reading my paper about the gorillas!