Science Sunday: Australian Island Travels 400 Years Back In Time
The world of Chronsylvania is full of strange phenomena, much like our own world. Every Sunday we'll highlight an article that explores the strange, and very real, scientific properties of our universe. We'll also leave you with a writing/drawing prompt based on the article to get your creative juices flowing.
This week's article from Kathryn Diss of the #AustralianBroadcastingCorporation, describes the efforts of scientists to reset the ecology of Dirk Hartog Island, an Australian National Park, back to a time before Eurpoean settlement. Yes, they're attempting to reset the ecological clock of this island to right around the year 1600.
Click the link to read the full article: http://amp.abc.net.au/article/10368926
Who says time travel is impossible? Not that we're biased on the subject or anything, but this article only provides further proof that time travel happens all of the time and in a diversity of ways. Here at The Ballad of Lumber Jackson, we purport to stop and manipulate time by telling stories. Out on Dirk Hartog Island, they claim to travel back in time by rounding up feral cats and removing sheep, goats, and any other semblance of European intrusions on the ecology of the island. Neither act is easy, but no one's ever claimed that traveling through time is. Sometimes in order to be a time-traveler, you literally have to herd cats.
But the aspect of this article that's really got us thinking is what the future for Dirk Hartog Island might look like. If the scientist's efforts are successful, 400 years from now, will the island be preserved perfectly and unchanged with all of the same native species that existed in the year 1600? Will some future human decision reverse the scientists' work and open the island for human agricultural and economic invasions?Will some natural event drastically alter the ecology of the island, killing off some species, causing others to evolve, and introducing new species? Or will aliens arrive on Earth at this exact location and build a marble monument to their point of first contact with the freakishly adorable hare wallabies pictured above?
With time travel, the possibilities are endless.
Speaking of endless, this week's creative prompt is a bonus three-in-one deal. So not exactly endless because, you know, it ends at three, but you get the idea.
Creative Prompt: Pick a specific location. It could be the room you're sitting in, your favorite park, or that convenience store up the block with the awesome slushies. Now, draw a quick sketch or write a description of that location. Consider specific details and features of the location that stand out to you.
Next, draw or write what that same location might've been like 400 years ago. The only rule is that you incorporate some aspect of your original drawing/description of the location in this version of it. Don't feel bound to reality here. If you want that corner store to have been the den of a fire-breathing komodo dragon 400 years ago, by all means, go for it.
Finally,draw or write what that same location might be like 400 years in the future. Same rules go for this one: you have to incorporate some element of your original drawing/description in this futuristic version of the place, but other than that, go wild. Will that corner store be part of a bombed-out, post-apocalyptic wasteland? A sustainable, litter-free, puppy-laden utopia? A military outpost for dolphins who have risen up and wrestled control of Earth from humanity's strange, five-fingered flippers?
And if you still don't believe that's its possible to travel through time, well, guess what? If you attempted the prompt, you just did.
You're welcome.
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Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next Wednesday with a brand new page.
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