Cultural Heritage 2010\08\17

Cultural Heritage Site

We have a Unit standard that has to do with Cultural heritage and today we went to one of Sondela's Heritage sites at the "Water punt Koppie". We were like archeologist's and had to look for some historical artifacts that came from the stone and iron age.
We had to document the artifacts so that they do not loose there value. We GPS'ed the coordinates and describe what we found on a paper and took a photo of it.Hundreds of years ago colonies of people lived on Sondela and used the natural recourse's in there everyday live. First was the Stone age were people used various tools made out of clay, sandstone and flint.


Some examples we found

Pot Shards made out of clay baked at a high temperature.They are used to store water and foods like grain and mielies .A thin pot was used for water and a thicker one for food.
Sometimes they were
decorated with patterns.

Sandstone and flint tools that were shaped to make spear points to kill an animal,carving and cutting tools to cut meat and skin animals.

Round Boulders to grind various things
like grain and plant material.

Then the Iron age began. We found Guthuite and Slag materials used too make iron aged tools. This contains iron and was melted at high temperatures to form a tool.

Some examples we found

Slag and Guthuite were used as spear points, dongas and other large forms of tools used to plow lands. The tribe who had these iron items in its possession were far ahead of others concerning farming and hunting.

Slag is the leftovers that boils away
from the iron and gets thrown away

Guthuite is the rock before
it is melted to get the iron in it.




This was a great exercise because we got to excavate a site were real history took place and touch the actual things that these ancient people made with there hands. Places like these is were all modern tools came from and we should take great pride in protecting Cultural heritage sites like them!!!

Crocodile Farm Visit on 10\08\02

Crocodile farm visit

We went on a tour to the Crocodile farm "Thaba Kwena" the 2nd of August.We are getting a certificate to be a tour guide on a crocodile farm. The tour guide gave us a tour through the farm. We all listened very carefully because we had to do our own small tour afterwards. We all got one topic to do research on and did the presentation on it in front of all the students, we got assessed on it and had to be competent or do it all over again.
After the tour we had some lunch and made posters of our subjects. The whole tour was interesting and I now know almost everything about the Nile Crocodile! The next day all of us had to write a 2hour long test about crocodiles!!!Fascinating prehistoric creatures!!!

Sondela's Game Capture

Game Capturing

This was a project that Sondela had to do because of a overpopulation on a 400 hec. field that had to much game like Kudus. In the beginning the plan was just to capture all of the kudus but that soon changed.

Captured:

• Kudus
• Blue-Wilde bees
• Eland
• Blesbuck

We all helped with the construction of the boma, by carrying poles, putting up the sales cleaning the area of branches and bushes in the way of the sales. It takes quite a long time to construct the boma, it took us a whole day and the next day we started capturing.



The method that was used to capture was simple. The whole plan and layout consisted of erected poles and opening and closing sales. The structure is usually in a triangular shape with the sales narrowing to the truck that kept all the game.


At the entrance of the boma there will be a sale closing that traps the animals inside when the chopper has chased them inside, followed by a second, third and fourth sale that brings them into the truck. We as students got the opportunity to help drag the sales closed and get the animals into the truck. We saw how they gave the game some relaxers and then put some pipes on the horns of the Blesbuck.

When the truck was full of game they transported them to an auction. The game were sold and the profit went to Sondela.


The whole experience was very exiting for me and I got to see how the "pro's" do it. I even got the opportunity to fly in the chopper and look for the game, it was amazing and my heart was pounding when we lifted up in the sky!!! It was a chance to see what the future may hold for some of us and if we want to pursue this kind of work!!!

Collecting spesimens

Collecting specimens

This activity is part of our Game Ranger course. We caught a Crested Barbet in a cage to observe it afterwards we let it go.We took it out of the cage and observed things like the eye, ears, beak, claws and the different feathers.

The Ears are located behind the eyes and covered with feathers, they are very sensitive because they have to pick up high frequencies from other birds.



We had a look at the feathers and what job each type of feather had. The claws was interesting, we learned that each type of bird had a different foot structure.

This was just a small capture but we are going to do more of them in the future, were we use various methods and catch different species. The Barbet flew away after we looked at it, and that is important to know that wen capturing something you should always place it back in the wild.