Report Writing

Today we used the a Google spreadsheet (off Google docs) to write a collaborative report on the African elephant. We were split into groups and asked to research an aspect about the African elephant. We had to research about one of the following: Physical Characteristics, Habitat, Diet, Reproduction, predators and endangerment.

We used the computers to research for the information. We wrote a paragraph about our assigned topic. We collated the information on the Google Doc. This is what we came up with!

THE AMAZING AFRICAN ELEPHANT

The African elephant is the largest land Animal in the world.Its scientific name is Loxodonta Africana.

The African female elephant has slender Tusks and a pointed forehead. Male elephants are bigger than the female elephants. Male elephants have thicker tusks male elephants have a slanted forehead. Their grey hairy skin is often covered with mud to protect them from the sun. Huge floppy ears are coincidentally shaped similar to the continent they live on, Africa.

African elephants primarily live in savannas, woodlands, mountains and desert areas; however they prefer thick moist tropical forests. Clean water and plentiful vegetation are the major requirements for their habitat selection. African elephants are indigenous to Africa with the vast majority of populations, residing in conservation areas.A wide temperature range from freezing to 48.88Celsius is tolerated by the elephants as long as water and shade are available.Elephants are not dependent upon other species for survival.

Elephants consume about 5% of their body weight and drink 30-50 gallons of water per day. Young elephants must learn how to drink water up their trunks and pour it in their mouths. They eat a big variety of vegetarian food including grass, leaves, fruit, twigs, bark and seed pods.

When mating, the male elephant stands up on his back legs and rides the female elephant from behind. He holds on to her with his front legs and have sex with her. The mating takes a few minutes. After mating, the two elephants spend time together touching each other with their trunks and even entwining each others trunks in an embrace. The two elephants may spend as much as two weeks together before the male leaves to live apart from the females again.

African Elephants don’t have any predators because they’re so big, but the calves are vulnerable to lions and crocodiles and sometimes to leopard and hyena attacks. Humans are the elephant's major predator. They hunt Elephants for meat, skin, bones, and tusks. Tourism and plantations attract sport hunters. Trophy hunting still happens today. The population of African Bush Elephants was halved during the 1980s. Scientists said that, if they didn’t protect elephants, they would be extinct by 1995.

The African elephant is endangered because of habitat loss. They have two worries, the lions eat them and humans hunt them for their tusks because their ivory tusk make great piano keys and jewelry.

Written by the whole of Rm 7.