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Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: *Nom nom nom*
Posts: 43,198
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Mercer Branxton
Ravenclaw Seventh Year
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|  Long post, but this is the BIG EVENT Made of Awesome | Ern-la the Best-wa | TZ's Apogee
SPOILER!!: Babiiiiiiiies Quote:
Originally Posted by Suziella  But there was another question to answer before they could get to that. Sebastian quickly raised his hand and waited to be called on before saying, "Well, a couple terms ago when the Inferi attack happened, the came out of the lake and went back in, as well as Professors and students fighting them around the lake. The Inferi could have disturbed and harmed many ecosystems within the lake as well as those fighting them, causing many to either die off if they were damaged enough or leave the lake entirely for safety causing damaging effects to the food chain." Yep. That could happen!
He wondered what the other students would say. He was only a first year when the Inferi attack happened so he wasn't allowed to help fight even if he had wanted to. It was still scary to see and hear. Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie .....what was this torture? Honestly.
His expression turned sour when the professor decided that now he wanted to hear what the fourth year had to say...and Nina earned herself another jab with his elbow into her side. He had his own dirt on you, Nina, that was slowly accumulating over each Creatures lesson so be careful what you were giggling at.
And he wanted to be snarky, ask if he wanted an answer based on a proper acromantula or simply a 'giant spider', but he held his tongue.
"You seemed satisfied by the answer Nina gave which included acromantulas. Would hate to repeat answers again," he offered coolly in reply instead. Though he did offer something regardless. "...human, acromantula." Very inspiring. Much wow.
And then the next question popped up and Eiji was more than fully content to just keep his mouth shut for this one too. Though it also seemed like Professor Cornish would now take great pleasure in calling him out and demanding answers. Stay quiet and Eiji lost. Speak up and he still lost. And Eiji Rasting hated losing...almost as much as he as beginning to hate this class.
Though something did pop up in discussion, this inferi attack, that half sparked his interest. He had spent all of it in the common room with Eloise watching the bodies walk towards the shore through the windows in the common room. Was also where he had finally sorted the name for his hairless rat after owning it for a year.
"Considering how that treasure in the lake had been there for centuries...Viking in origin or something like that if I recall correctly, the inferi too had been hidden in the depths of the lake for centuries as well, right? So were they not, over time, assimilated into the ecosystem of the lake? Perhaps the flesh on the bodies provided nourishment for carnivorous creatures who happened upon them and such. So their eventual permanent removal by the Ministry, likewise, was a disturbance to the lake's established ecosystem."
And look. Someone else was calling them giant spiders. Eiji held his tongue once again.
Rasting was really pushing his luck, and Cornish gave him a flat look. All eyebrows, no nonsense. “You’re very good at sarcasm, Rasting. See me after class so we can discuss your skills further. Now, de Luca and Rasting bring up an interesting point. The inferi incursion a few years back was definitely disruptive to the ecosystem. At the point that they entered the lake, the ecosystem had to adapt around them, and now we’re at the point where, as Rasting says, the ecosystem essentially includes them.”
But sassy pants wasn’t entirely correct. “I could argue that the entering and leaving of the lake was not something it was adapted to. All those feet, walking where feet aren’t intended to walk, turning over rocks and stirring up the dirt.” Aside from that… “What do you two think, then? Can the lake survive the disturbance of their loss?” Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua A lot of examples flooded Hanna's mind, at the request of Professor Cornish, but the sudden anxiety at needing to come up with an answer right there left her speechless. She couldn't put a cohesive answer together. Luckily he moved on to Rylee, but Hanna was left feeling incomplete in her answer. She just needed to formulate a complete thought before speaking. Sure.
History combined with creatures. Well, Hanna loved history and thinking back over what had happened to have an impact on the Hogwarts Ecosystem was quite easy. Hanna raised her hand and said "Any time a creature is introduced to an ecosystem, it changes. One example would be in... in..." what year was it? Hanna blinked, remembering. "1995, a giant was introduced to the forest. It was huge, and angry, and ate anything it could get its hands on." Or she assumed it did, anyway. Giants could eat any meat and plant matter. "I know some of the larger animals fled the area. The animals who they preyed upon were left without a predator, besides the giant. The plant life was changed, some of left alone to grow, and others eaten, made extinct. The circle of life, even just for that period, was changed." She was so nervous. Merlin. Had he grown horns or something? Cornish perked when she finally spoke, though, since her example was excellent. And she pushed it through to its conclusion. “The giant in the forest. A new apex predator. Knocked down some trees, too, and you can still see the damage. That’s a good one. But it’s unlikely that the environment hasn’t mostly recovered a hundred years later.” Mostly. It was hard for them to imagine how very quickly nature recovered… and yet how long their impact weighed on things. Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormdancer Holly furrowed her eyebrows slightly, nibbling on her lip as she listened to the Professor being sad and down and depressing. She didn’t want everything to die just so she could eat vegetables. She didn’t really like them all that much, she just had to eat them for her training and to be healthy. She’d stop eating them all apart from carrots… and peas. She liked them. Maybe cauliflower… and Lettuce… couldn’t eat a salad without lettuce… Merlin… Sodit. She liked vegetables.
”Well, I’d assume the Great War affected a lot of creatures, since a lot of the actual castle was destroyed… surely that affected bugs and spiders and things that birds eat… which probably affected the bigger creatures like …” She paused to think. ”Thestrals and Hippogriffs if there were any here?” She was guessing… but it sounded somewhat logical. ”That and we’re probably really loud. Students, I mean.” The Battle of Hogwarts. Good example, although also nearly 100 years ago. “That battle was devastating to the forest. The giants tromping through alone killed off plants and frightened away wildlife. Very good example. And imagine how rebuilding continued to effect the plants and animals around here…” Quote:
Originally Posted by MunchyBubbles Oops..
So her ever so casual looking at the dirt had caught the Professor’s attention. “Of course it’s not Professor Cornish. ” The answer was quiet as she looked up at him again. “I just wasn’t sure of an answer.” She responded with a lip bite. Truth was hard for her, but she knew she needed it classes.
As for his next question, Bast had answered what she was going to say before she could say it! The Inferi attack was the most recent she could remember, at least on the grounds. And she still had a scar on her leg due to it, so that was burned into her memory.
She raised her hand, “I’m sure all the Giant spiders everywhere couldn’t have been good for the ecosystem. ” Was her answer vague? Yes.. yes it was. “Acromantulas,” Cornish clarified absently. “Introduced to the ecosystem in the 1950’s. Drove away most of the other natural predators from the forest… yes. It’s tempting to say they’re just part of the environment as we know it, but they were a foreign invader when the first acromantula showed up. Really genius answer.” They were both surprised. Quote:
Originally Posted by ArianaBlack Nina was almost convinced that their Professor was a sadist. The grin he flashed after explaining the horrible ramifications of a tampered food chain did not go unnoticed. In fact, everything about him went unnoticed in this Slytherin's eyes as she was watching him very intently with a displeased sort of curiosity. He was so weird. Everything he did proved it .
And though she would never admit it, she wasn't hating the present lesson as much as she did previous ones. Not because of the subject matter, but because everything thus far had been theory based. If Creatures lessons were all this way she would take no real issue to them aside from the fact that animals were not at all interesting in the slightest. It was the practice that she really hated. Nina Castillo did not like to touch animals, thank you very much.
But a question with historical basis? She didn't mind giving it thought. In the year 1991 under the guise of Quirinus Quirrell, Voldemort slew unicorns in the forrest. That probably caused over-vegetation which could have potentially lead to invasive species of plants taking up space normally taken by plants that acted as food for other animals. Maybe. But instead of answering out loud, Nina simply practiced her usual look reserved for this class. Castillo was still broken. Cornish coughed into his fist and gave her a pointed look before moving on. Maybe she was confused by the subject matter. It was terribly advanced. Quote:
Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom Nettie found this lesson so incredibly BORING. She really liked this professor, and he seemed to know what he was talking about, it was the TOPIC that was failing to hold her attention today. Taking tons of electives had SOUNDED like a great idea when she'd signed up for them, and she had definitely been rethinking that this term. This was probably one she'd keep, but she needed to be ENERGIZED if she was going to stick around...
She raised her hand after a few moments of thought, however, and decided to contribute her first answer to the class. Hopefully this question and answer bit would be over soon and they could move on to more fun activities. "Well, in the Triwizard Tournament that Harry Potter competed it, they had dragons being kept in the forest to use for the competition. They had to eat SOMETHING, so I'm assuming whatever the wizards supplied for their food threw things off balance after some time," she explained. She couldn't imagine dragons - and a Hungarian Horntail, no less - being happy that they were just supplied old meat. It was safe to assume they let them hunt SOME times, right? “Luckily those dragons only lived here for a few weeks, but I imagine during that time, every creature in the forest trembled,” Cornish half smiled at the thought. Dragons could exist in forests just like these, but they would have driven off the acromantula, the unicorns, the thestrals. It was lucky they hadn’t been scared away for good.
Enough of the talking. If the students weren’t completely exhausted by the chatter, then they were real gluttons for punishment. He had a much lower threshold for pain, and he wanted to do some actual good work now. Let those glazed expressions be replaced by a little hard work, sweat, maybe tears.
“I want us to start thinking proactively about what it takes to keep this ecosystem balanced and about what we should be doing to take care of it. I realize this makes me sound like some sort of rabid eco-warrior, which is exactly what I am, I suppose. It matters what we do here, the learning and spellcasting and socializing, so add to that list ‘eco-warrioring’. Just do it and don’t fight with me until your grade is posted.” Cornish abandoned his spot at the front of the group to stand amid the piles he’d placed on the beach.
“Here’s what we’re doing for the rest of the class. I’ve set up four different activities you can do that are necessary to getting our lake and surrounding area back into top notch order. You can do all four, but you must do at least two different tasks. Experience the full breadth of warrioring today.” He pointed to a pile of fabric bags. “First task, pick up any trash you find on the grounds and beach and as deep into the lake as you’re willing to wade. I want you to pay particular attention to how this trash is impacting creatures, especially in the lake. If you find ANYTHING injured, bring it to me immediately and we’ll take care of it.”
Next, he moved to a bucket filled with glass phials. “Second task, take water and soil samples from the beach and shallow water. I have some friends who will run some tests for us, but we need to get a thorough sampling. If you’re a good swimmer, feel free to take samples from the deeper water. I want all phials labelled with the location it was taken.”
And on to the stack of empty fish tanks. They looked so sad and lonely with no water or fish in them. “Third task, we need to repopulate the snail population in the lake, since they are one of the fundamental foodstuffs for creatures like plimpies and grindylows. I want you to grab a tank and find a sunny spot near the Creatures hut. We’ll move them inside when it starts to get colder. Fill the tank with water, add some of the plants I’ve gathered here, and add a few of these snails. I call them ‘starter snails’, for lack of a better word. Finally, add an algae tablet… and in a few days, we’ll start to see baby snails in the tank.”
The last pile were the long weighted nets. “Fourth task, plimpy capture and release. One of our particular problems at Hogwarts is that the plimpies’ legs can tangle in fallen trees limbs in the water, or when the lake is churned up and turbulent. I want you to use the weighted nets to drag the lake bottom for tangled plimpies. Examine what you find, bring me the injured ones, untangle those who aren’t injured, and then release the plimpies before they get thoroughly weirded out.”
And that was it. Time to get to work. “Keep moving, return to the fire when you get cold, and don’t be reckless with yourselves or with our creatures. Come to me if you need help or advice, but otherwise, leave me alone. Get started.” Pick any two of the tasks listed above. I want to see at least two good posts per task, or more than that if you’re working with friends (and I encourage you to work with friends!). The tasks are: picking up trash, collecting samples, creating snail tanks, and catching plimpies. Let me know if you need help.
__________________ ★ Dawn ★
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