Naturally Kiawah Magazine Volume 36 | Page 71

I’ve always thought alligators were really cool. So in third grade when I had to do a specialty project on the animal of my choice, I picked alligators. After I did some research I met with the staff at the Heron Park Nature Center and the South Carolina Aquarium to ask a lot of questions. Next I talked my grandmother into stalking alligators with me. She let me use her camera to take pictures (always from a safe distance) on Kiawah and at Magnolia Plantation’s Audubon Swamp Garden. With a little bit of help, I was able to self-publish a book of what I learned about alligators. Charlie Smith; age 15 A Fish Story So we were fishing for fish I caught a really big fish then a alligator came under the bridge and he snagged the fish off of my hook and that was the end of my fish story. Lucy Frost; age 6 For a science project at school, I had to come up with a hypothesis and set up an experiment to support or disprove it. I wanted to see if birds preferred one color feeder over others. There are so many birds in my grandparents’ yard on Kiawah, that was a good place to test. We bought the same bird feeder in five different colors. I put the same seed in each feeder, hung them close together at the same height and rotated their position each day. At the same time every day, I measured and recorded the amount of seed the birds ate that day. My hypothesis was that birds would prefer the red feeder because I remembered seeing hummingbirds and butterflies around red flowers in the garden. However, my experiment showed the birds that visited my feeders preferred the dark green one. It was a fun project. Scotty Smith; age 12 69