WATER
The needs of nature and people
Sri Lanka is lucky that she dose not have to share water with any other country. Hence she is able to manage her water resource and minimize environmental hazards. If we are to preserve the natural beauty of Sri Lanka we have to manage our water resource well.Sri lanaka is called, the pearl of the Indian Ocean, because of her shape and natural beauty.
There are two aspects to water management; firstly to allocarte water to the environment according to the environmental demands, secondly to suppy the human requirement of water for agriculture, industry, power generation domestic work.
Excessive removal of water from rivers, tanks and other water ways has exposed bird, animal, fish, and plant species to danger. It alohas threatened the live lihood of farmers and fishermen. Many people depend on river water for drinking, cooking, washing, and for various other uses. When the supply of water for irrigation is interrupted, the farmers cannot cultivate their lands and inland fishing will not be possible.
The flow of water keeps the ecosystem healthy and productive.
Dr.Validimir S makhtin,the principal researcher at the international water management institute (IWMI) based in Colombo, points out that the water flow has to very at different times of the years, to maintain the good health of the ecosystem. According to the IWMI the environmental needs are not being met as too much of water is being removed.
The policy makers should pay greater attention to the over exploitation of freshwater. They must recognize the need to allocate water for the main tenance of the environment. The water wastage must be controlled. They must also monitor the flow of water and pay greater attention on finally they must take steps to maintain the ecosystem.
M.D.Hrashani Pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com
Harshani.pradeepika@yahoo.com

MEDICINE
The practies of medicine is based on diagnosis and treatment. A hundred years ago, the physician felt the pulse and came to various conclusions about illnesses.
He had only a few instruments to diagnose a disease, within the last hundred years, medical technology developed. Now the physician has sophisticated medical instruments to diagnose diseases.
X-ray machine that was invented in 1895 came in to regular use. It was invented by Wilhelm, roentgen. With the help of this machine the doctors were able to see the inside of the body and diagnose diseases. In 1973 the CAT scan machine was invented. With this invention medical science was revolutionized. The patient is kept inside the machine and the body is scanned by X-rays.
Medical technology continues to develop very rapidly. Today the changes of the body can be observed and measured. These findings are the key to diagnosing diseases and deciding treatment.
The E.C.G machine was invented duting the last century. It is used to find out how the heart works. The damage caused by a heart attack can be measured on this machine.
Modern technology is able to support failing organs. Ventilators are used to maintain oxygen levels to assist breathing.
Sir Alexander Fleming, whose discovery of many other antibiotics. The antibiotics help in treating a large range of bacterial infections.
Modern technology has helped immensely to develop surgery. Now lasere are used in surgery. Kidney stones and gall bladder stones are removed through laser surgery.Lader treatments are used for treating eye diseases too.
Medical science and technology has developed so much that surgeons transplant organs from one body to another. Kidney transplantation was first attempted in 1902.Tody it is a well established operation. Heart transplantation was first performed in South Africa, in 1967.
It was done by the surgeon, Christian Barnard.
Immunization programmes are carried out to give protection to children. His has greatly decreased previously common diseases.

M.D.Harshani Pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com
Harshani.pradeepika@yahoo.com

BLUE STARS AND GOLD
While walking through the trams and cars
I changed to look up at the sky,
And saw that it was full of start!

SO starry- sown! A man could not,
With any care, have stickpin
Through any single vacant spot.

And some were shining furiously;
And some were big and some were small;
But all were beautiful to see

Blue stars and gold ! A sky of grey!
The air between a velvet pall!
I could not take my eyes away!

And there I sang this little psalm
Most awkwardly! Because I was
Standing between a car and train!

M.D Harshani Pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com

HANDICRAFTS OR
FOLK ARTS?
Padma provided the following information on Indian designs. Embroidered Quilt, Kantha from Bangalore.
Do you know embroidery? Do you know what embroidery is?
It is the addition of pattern or other ornamental effect, to textiles by the use of the needle and thread. The wonder is that Kantha embroidery uses only the simplest of stitches, the running stich!
The state of Bengal is famous for Kantha art.Kanthe actually means ‘embroidered quilt’. The embroidered quilts of Bangalore are wonderful in their beauty, colour and design.
The Sanskrit word’Kantha’mwans rags. It is a cottage industry, and is also a form of folk art. There are two types of embroidery. In one the old, discarded cotton sarees or dhoties are put one on top of the other and is quilted by using discarded cotton bed spreads.
The colours used for this embroidery are black, deep blue and red. These colours stand for the tree basic aspects of nature-earth, sky and space. The designs used are of lotus flowers, creepers, foliage, floral, scrolls’and animal and human figures.
Today the Kantha embroidery is famous all around the globe. The old Kantha designs are priced possessions now. They are found on sleek shawls, sarees, and, bags.
The village women spend a great deal of time and care in getting the perfect designs.

M.D.Harshani pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com
harshani.pradeepika@yahoo.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Science promotes logical thinking
Technology uses man’s thinking

Science and technology has helped people to gain control over nature. The first people had little control over nature. They had to depend on nature for their living. They had only simple tools. They did not know how to raise animals or plants. They had no permanent homes. Animal’s skins were their only protection against the cold. The sun was their only source of light with the passage of time, people discovered how to make fair and learnt to raise animals and crops. With the development of farming, they began to build settlements. Then they discovered new methods to make their work easier, and to increase their comforts. Through the age technology has helped people to build a more comfortable way
Industrias technology began with the invention of the steam engine. The work in factories became faster. The production increased. The working hours were reduced. The radio and the television changed their entertainment habits.
Technology helps people to live in greater comfort and security than in the past.Agriculture.medicine and transport technologies have brought many benefist to man
Today machines do most of the work. Powered machines have increased production and given people more leisure. The needs of the people began to increase. The result is the creation of a world of modern science and technology.

M.D.Harshani Pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com
Harshani.pradeepika@yahoo.com

FOLK LORE
One every important source pf knowledge is folk lore. Lore means learning. Folk lore is the learning or knowledge that has not-been weittendown.It has been passed down orally from generation to generation.
White is interesting about folk lore? While the main body of knowledge is passed down, the details may change from area to area. They are bound up with the customs and traditions of the society. It includes tales, legends, oralhistory, proverbs, iokes and popular beliefs.
Every country has its own body of folk lore.Agriclutural societies were full of folk lore. In Europe folk lore became a serious study in the 19th centure with the rise of nationalisam.sociologisgists study folk lore. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected the stories and legends known in Germany and compiled them as one book. The English translation is known as children’s and house hold tales. This was published in 1812. Now we can read lots of tales from all other lands.
When we read stories about these lands we can learn about the nature of the lands, the climate, the animals and the living conditions of the time. There are many stories about fire in many lands. Aladdin struck a match. That was magic.Amal biso went to a house to borrow some firel light. The story of the little match Girl tells us how she sold matches in the cold wintry evenings.
These stories influence our lives too. The popularity of the teddy bears comes from the love of these stories. The bears in these tails are like human beings, kind and gentle. This attitude to bears is totally absent in other cultures. Some times a similar story may be told in two different lands. There is a story in Ummagga Jathakaya very similar to the story told by Bertolt brecht in A Cauca Sian chalk circle.
Some habits costomes and taboos, that is things you must not do, also are part of folk lore. The use of lime and turmeric for cleansing is one such example.
In ancient times when a person died and the dead body was taken out, the place was sprinkled with turmeric water, people returning from a funeral would rub themselves whith lime.
It is now known that lime and turmeric have disinfecting properties. In ancient times in Sri Lanka people going in to forests, or crossings on to an un known land would break a spring and hang it on a tree. It was considered as an offering to Aiiyanayaka, alocal god of the area. However the custom has a very significant use or meaning. The springs dying on these trees would in dicate the path to the travelier.So, the belief that ‘if you did not observe the tites of god Aiiyanayake you would be lost, has a real meaning. Perhaps the fear of god would have made people not to forget to take this very essential precaution.

M.D.Harshani Pradeepika
Pradeepika6@gmail.com
Harshani.pradeepika@yahoo.com

 Teenagers &Entertainment all work and no                                                   play makes jack a dull boy

         The school was celebrating the 50th anniversary. Every grade could select an item to show their parents some special thing about the school. They had to make some money towards the school found too.

          Use full Hobbies
          An Exhibition
          Entertainment
     
          They prepared a programme of entertainment, and called it teen Entertainment.
          One was music. There were students who could play instruments. The friends talked among themselves and decided to from a band. They brought their own instrumements from home. They met the music teacher. The music teacher helped them to select the music. They selected some old favorites like, whispering Hope ‘My Bonny lies over the Ocean.Clementine’and some modern ones: country Roads, and the theme song, from the film, the Titanic, My heart will go on’.
          They also selected somepopurar sinhala and Tamil light songs. Harshani was a good singer. She could sing well. But she was shy. She agreed to sing only when her friend Padma promised to join in. The music teacher trained them to sing. At first they found it dull and boring, but they practiced hard, and their voices harmonized. Then they were filled with a sence of joy. They learnt to sing parts of the song at different pitches. They learnt one English song-They happy wonderer and one Sinhala song, Rathna Dipa.Padma practiesd the Tamil song, Sinna sinna aasai’.
            They decided to do a souvenir for the programme.They would write short introductions to the items in the programme.They would also provide some information on the instruments. Then they would make the event-‘Admission by souvenir’.

                               M.D Harshani Pradeepika
                               Pradeepika6@gmail.com

The Textile Industry
 The development of the spinning
                   Machine
              Spinning was a cottage industry in many lands.Kuveni was spinning when prince wijaya landed in Sri Lanka.Weaving was ademestic industry in England too,tiil the invention of the flying shuttle and the spinning jenny.These inventions simplified the use of the machine.It could now be worked by power. It brought a tremendous change on human life, in treams of speed and volume.
              The modern textile technology has in fluenced the ready-made garment industry in Sri Lanka.Factories, have been set up in cities and rural areas, providing employment for both men and women. Mostly young rural womenhave taken up employment in these factories.Ready-made garments are exported to America, United Kingdom, France and other European countries, fashion shows in modern trends are held in leading cities all over the world to promote the garments produced in Sri Lanka.The industry has become a leading foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka.
                           M.D. Harshani Pradeepika
                           Pradeepika6@gmail.com

SINHARAJA RAIN FOREST
      The Sinharaja forest is the only undisture bed rain forest left in Sri Lanka. It is about 9000 hectares in extent. Many of the plants are very rare. Over 60%.  Of the tree species are found only in the lowland wet  zone of sri lanka.If these species of trees are allowed to get destroyed, the world would lose them altoge’ther.So it is important that much effort is made to conserve this rich, valuable and fragile habitat.
      The sinharaja rain forest is the largest rain forest reserve in Sri Lanka.In 1840 sinharaja became a crown property.In1988 the sinharaja was made a national wilderness area. In 1989 UNESCO included the sinharaja forest in the world heritage list, as the first national heritage of Sri Lanka.
       The sinharaja forest is home to many rare animals, birds, butterflies, insects, reotiles and trees. Ferns and mosses grow well as the climate is humid because of heavy rainfall.
The vegetation
     Vegetation means trees, shrubs, herbs and woody climbers.The avrege height of trees in the sinharaja verise between 35 to 40 metres.Sometrees are above 50 metres.
 

The animals and the birds
      Sinharaja provides a habitat for animals.The plants provide them with food.There are large mammals as well as small ones living there.The purple feced monkeys can be observed easily.They move about in groups.There are herbivores,carnivores’as well as mixed feeders.The wild pig,the sambur,the movse-deer and the braking-deer are some that you find in the sinharaja.There is also evidence of the presence of the leopard.Among others are the rusty spotted cat and the fishing cat.There are many other varieties of small mammals.
       Studies have recorded 147 species of birds.Some threatened species of birds are found in the sinharaja.Among them are the blue magpie the white-headed star ling and the ash-headed babbler.
Reptiles
        Studies have recorded 45 varieties of reptiles.These include snakes.Lizatds and tortoises.The viper and the cobra are among the yenomous species.Conservation of sinharaja is of vital necessity.If ensures the maintenance of water resources.It also controls floods,which is a constant threat due to heavy rainfall in the area.

                                     M.D Harshani Pradeepika
                                     Pradeepika6@gmail.com

  A visit to the past
       The time was 7.30 in the morning. The students walked to the house where the first pupil of the school lived. The student had enjoyed the walk. They had a most enjoyable breakfast.  There host had prepared a lovely break fast.
       He had boiled manioc, sweet potatoes, varietics, of yam and beadfruit.Every thing was from his graden.The manioc was fresh pulled out the previous day.Sowere the other yams and the sweet potatoes. The bread fruit was really fine. There were two types of katta sambal, the normal one with red chillies, and other with kochchi.There was scraped coconut. He had   also cooked some red rice and made delicious white coconut gravy for it.
      The coffee was home made. They sipprd the coffee, sittingout in the verandah, looking at the coffee threes in bloom. The white flowers filled the air with the fragrance, the twigs were lined whith the red berries.The coffee wsas followed by two large combs of bananas, once again from the garden.
      It was a visit that will not be for gotten.
      The students had wanted to know what the country was like, seventy years ago. They lrarnt by experience what it must have been.
      Then the host brought out his album. It had photographs. Of the school, his friends, his prts and some of the events and the scenes of the lime. They were all black and white photographs. They were beautiful. The students were surprised to see them in such a good condition.
      Why don’t we organize a photographic exhibition? Asked Wasantha.Every body agreed. It was agood idea. They decided to write to past pupils of the school asking for photographs.
                                    M.D Harshani Pradeepika
                                    Pradeepika6@gmail.com