Hey! Welcome to Theo's Wiki page! This weeks suprising thing about me is that I was in several commercials! I was on the cover of the lansing guide when I was six and they just made it into a sort of commercial! And If you go up, there is another one. Here's the link:http://www.michigan.org/Partners/Lansing/Default.aspx?link=feat

 

           Meerkats are Unique in Their Lifestyle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2sYGWHtYDk&feature=player_detailpage

     Meerkat; A mongoose native to South Africa (Webster’s new dictionary Massachusetts, G&C Merriam company 2008)

Meerkats live in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. They are territorial and ferocious but they are also very social in their families. They can have up to 30 meerkats in one group and up to four square mile in territory. They are quite like humans in terms of social organization. While they live the drama of their family life they also have a lot of hunting duties that keep them very busy and the family fed.

           

Meerkats have sand colored coats that help them camouflage from birds of prey that like to eat them. They also have dark circles around their eyes that give the impression that their eyes are much bigger than they actually are. Another illusion is that they can stand on their hind legs to make themselves look bigger and also to scan their territory for predators. They have white bellies with a thin layer of fur on them that helps them control their body temperature. They have very strong forearms, which is why they are such good diggers. While they dig, they can fold back their ears so no sand gets in. They also have long flexible backbones that help them get around in the tunnels.

 

            Meerkats are omnivores. They consume a diet of meat, insects, and fruit. Meerkats have also been known to fight scorpions and even rattlesnakes. The way they hunt scorpions is they have to be very fast. They come from behind and then they bite off the stinger. The rest is pretty easy. Fighting a rattlesnake is harder. They have to make the first move. They go for the head and grab on and hold on while the rattlesnake tries to wrestle it off. But, when the rattlesnake gets tired, the meerkat bites down and kills the snake. The most interesting thing about the meerkat is how it gets its water. They can either get water from the roots of a plant or they can eat a fruit called a tsama melon.

 

            Meerkats live mainly in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia and South Africa. Their coats are sand colored which helps them blend in to the ground to keep from being spotted by birds of prey, which eat meerkats. They live in tunnels underground. They are very good diggers, so they make a lot of holes that they can escape predators with. It is very hot in Africa so to keep cool during the mid-day heat, they crawl into their tunnel system to keep cool. This system is very large, and can stretch for miles! And since meerkats have ferret like bodies that can fit easily into the tunnel system. Meerkats live in dry savannahs and open plains, so they can see the enemies approaching easier. Lookouts try to find the highest point of the territory, next to a hole, so if they see something wrong, they can just sound the alarm and run back into the hole.

           

In the wild, a meerkat can live up to ten years and have 4 pups a year. In the morning, when the meerkats wake up, they hunt in the morning, rest in the mid-day sun and hunt more in the afternoon and return to their tunnels in the evening. One clan can have up to 40 meerkats. They can also mark their territory up to 4 square miles from their den. At the den, while the males are on the lookout for predators, and enemies, the females taken care of the pups. When a litter is born, the mother will nurse them on milk for the first 9 weeks of life, even though they can eat solid food only 3 weeks after birth. The mother teaches them how to hunt by holding food in her mouth and letting them chase her and try to grab it. While the mother is away hunting, other adults take care of the pups. Meerkats have also been known to share their dens and tunnels with other members of the mongoose family, such as African ground squirrels and yellow mongooses. Meerkats don’t even notice when their own cousins are spending the night in their tunnels.

 

There are many meerkats in a clan, so when an enemy is spotted, an alarm is sounded, and everyone helps to drive the invader out, except the pups. Meerkats live in large families, so they can attack as a group in an organized pattern. They live in an environment that has many predators. Since meerkats are very territorial, they have to make their territory with a strong smell from the anal glands, so that another clan of meerkats can’t mark it and take it as their own land. Although meerkats can live with similar species, they are not friendly to species such as bat-eared foxes, or any snakes of any kind. When they attack, they move as one animal to make them look bigger. They can stand on their hind legs to make themselves look taller. One more way they make themselves look taller, is that they can arch their backs while they run as a sign of aggression.   While meerkats are forging, one animal watches for predators while the rest try to dig a fat gecko out of its burrow. What is found, is split and eaten with a portion to take back to the dens and burrows to feed the younger pups that can’t hunt yet.

 

Meerkats are unique and beautiful creatures that care about their families and that they are not so different than humans. They are social and smart which helps them survive in the wild, happy and healthy. There is a definition of a meerkats at the very start of this essay. But, there is not a dictionary that can define the beauty of the meerkat.

 

                                                       Works Cited

Burnie, David and Wilson, Don. Smithsonian Institution: Animal. London: DK publishing, 2003

Cavendish, Marshall. Exploring Mammals. New York: Bernabeo, 2008

Gove, Phillip. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. Massachusetts: G&C Merriam Company, 1976

Morris, Pat. Mammals: Small Carnivores. London: Scholastic library, 2003

 

           

 

                       

 

 

     The Smallest Student                           Theo Van Egeren

4 students walked into the English classroom on Monday morning, talking about the math homework that had been assigned over the weekend.

“I hate fractions.” Annie stated.

“You still don’t know how to multiply?” asked Claire

“You’re one to talk,” said Ben, “ You went after class just to get the basics of that personal narrative idea.”

Claire slumped

“ Well,” amended Matt, “ My grandpa always said if the beets aren’t ripe, then you should smell them until they are.”

Annie looked at Ben and shrugged.

“ Well, good morning class,” said Ms. Goldstein chirped

“ Good morning Ms. Goldstein.” the class echoed sleepily.

“ Aren’t you guys just a bunch of eager beavers today?” she said sarcastically

She started the lesson on more personal narratives.

YAWN. Thought Claire.

Instinctively she raised her hand.

“ Yes Claire?”

“ Um, can I have a hall pass to go to the bathroom?” She asked.

            “Of course.” Ms. Goldstein wrote out a hall pass and handed it to Claire

Claire walked out of the classroom, to take the long way to the bathroom. As she passed the science lab, she noticed something very, what’s the word, metal.  It was blindingly shiny. She walked in without even noticing. She was at a loss for words. She reached out to touch it and it suddenly got BIGGER. She looked around and saw that everything in the room had gotten bigger too! The floor seemed to be miles long! The papers and pencils that cluttered the floor suddenly looked like small mountains! She ran under the nearest table. She looked up at the tools station with glue, scissors, and… RULERS! She looked both ways and then sprinted over to the tools station.

Thank goodness I took gym! She thought, as she climbed up a leg of the table.

Once she was up, she took all her might, and lifted a ruler up to the side of the wall. She stood up against it. He was exactly one and a fifth inches. She frowned, disappointed. I thought I would be at least 1 and a half, She shrugged it off and climbed back down. It would seem like a 2-mile walk back to Ms. Goldstein’s room. She looked at a paper airplane sitting on one of the tables. She shrugged. Well, she thought, nothing seems impossible anymore.

She climbed up to the airplane and sat down inside the little pocket in the middle, before realizing that an airplane didn’t go off the middle of a table like this one seemed to be doing. When she realized what was happening, she looked up to see Mr. Brown, her science teacher from last year.

“Hello Claire,” he said, “ And what might you be doing on this fine day on a paper airplane instead of writing your personal narrative?”

She tried to say hi back, but soon realized that he couldn’t hear her She hopped off of the airplane and grabbed a pencil with a loose piece of lead. She plucked the lead out of the pencil and wrote her story on a piece of paper, then handed it to him.

He squinted at it for a minute and then said, “ You always did have very small handwriting Claire.”

She put her hands on her hips and got an idea. She pointed to herself and then made her hands come together suggesting that she got smaller, then pointed to Mr. Brown and made her hand bigger, suggesting that he should help her get bigger.

“ Huh?” he asked. She flailed her arms and fell down. “OOOHHHH.” He said, “ Why didn’t you just say so?”

She sighed heavily

“ Well, this is good!” Mr. Brown said. Claire’s mouth fell open. “ I mean the machine works!” Claire could have sworn that her jaw hit the floor.

“ b-b-but” she stuttered

“I’ll explain later. First, lets get you back to 4 foot 7inches.”

He picked her up and walked over to the machine and placed her on a small platform and started to push buttons

Claire squirmed but didn’t do anything.

Suddenly everything just got bigger, just like shrinking.

As soon as she overcame her amazement, she turned to Mr. Brown

“What was that!” she demanded

“What?” he replied innocently

“ The shrink machine!” she almost yelled furiously

“ I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She looked around but the shrink machine was not in sight! About to lose her temper, she realized how silly she must have sounded. So she quietly backed out of the science lab and headed back to the English room as the bell rung. Annie came out of the English room and handed her, her things.

“ I think I just got hit by a shrink ray.” Claire said rubbing her temples.

“ Everyone feels like that on Monday.”

 

 

 

 

 

         The End?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sal's place: The Badlands

 

     The Badlands are the place to be. It is beautiful scenery and lots of hills. There are some of the most famous fossils that were found in the badlands. Part of the badlands is red because it has a lot of clay in it. One of the best places to be is at the dinosaur national monument. You can go and look at real dinosaur bones and watch as secrets of the past are reveled! I learned this on wikipedea.com. The Badlands is the best place to hike, discover, and learn!

 

     My place: Disney World in Florida

 

     My favorite place is Disney World because you always have something to do. It would seem an imature and childish place, but it has adapted so all ages have fun and have new experiences.  I love that place because it is completely family orieneted! My favorite ride, is the rockin rollercoaster! It goes 65 mph! It doesn't sound fast but it is. If I could go anywhere in the United States, I would go to Disney World in Florida.

 

 

Don't smoke people! You could have saved us a lot of time!

 

 

 

 

 

    We Should Outlaw Smoking           Theo Van Egeren

I believe that we should outlaw smoking. Smoking is an addictive, unhealthy, and [technically] a drug. But how can smoking affect another person? It makes people very depressed and sick. Second hand smoke is just one way another person’s smoking can affect another person. Inhaling smoke can cause deadly diseases. It makes public places smell disgusting, and if we outlawed it the air would be a lot cleaner. These are the reasons that I think that we should outlaw smoking.

 

         Smoking is bad for people. The center of the disregard to health is the ingredients that are rolled up into the cigarette. These ingredients are disgusting and addictive. The ingredients that go into toilet cleaner also go into a cigarette. And the tar that goes into the cigarette also goes into your lungs and turns them black. This is called black lung disease. Another life threatening hazard is a heart attack. Many American smokers die from a smoking related heart attack.

 

         When a person smokes, it affects their feelings too. Let makes them feel good at the time, but once they have stopped, it makes them feel depressed and guilty. It can make them mean and sad and hurt them mentally and physically. My neighbor was a smoker and she got so angry and emotional all the time until she finally quit. I think that the guilt can sometimes be too much for one person to handle. And it can sometimes lead to suicide! And if you have children or a dog or even smoking in a public place, can especially affect them too.

 

         And finally, second hand smoke is one way smoking can affect others. If you smoke around another person, you are inhaling it then blowing it into another person. The smoke then gets transferred to somebody else’s lungs, even if they didn’t smoke it. If you even smell any cigarette smoke you are getting second hand smoke and you should leave immediately. You may not mean to have your daughter, son, husband, or even dog smoke a cigarette. But that might just end up happening.

 

         People smoke. And by doing that, they can get depressed, involuntarily make others unhealthy, or even die because of the diseases, like black lung disease, that smoking can cause. Just outlawing smoking and not allowing people to smoke can prevent this however. It would prevent generations to come from this terrible  addiction, and make a much healthier population. Let’s stop it before it starts!