Alice received a present today for her birthday. The present came from her fairy god-mother. It was perfectly wrapped in bright blue paper, with green trimming, and a pretty yellow bow on top. It was a beautiful present, so beautiful that Alice was overcome with happiness. You see, Alice was a very precocious child.
When she unwrapped the gift, she amazed, “what a present”. She gratefully thanked her god-mother. What Alice saw, you know what Alice saw, what Alice saw was a sight to behold. It brought light to her eye, it was the best gift ever. It was an aquarium, but not really. It was a terrarium, but not really just that either. It was more a biosphere, with water, air, dirt, creatures, and everything. It was Alice’s Ant Farm.
Fairy-god mother explained to Alice the purpose of the Ant Farm. God-mother explained to Alice that the Ant Farm contained All Natural Things. God-mother explained that within each scoop of soil there were more living beings in her biosphere than on the face of the earth. She explained that Alice would be entrusted with the handling and care of this farm. She looked at Alice with love and stated “Alice, this is your Ant Farm.”
Alice was so happy! She thought about all the great things she could do with the farm. She thought about how she could love it, and cherish it, and water it, and feed it, and watch it grow. She was one happy girl. Then fairy god-mother gave Alice a set of instructions. Instructions on how to care for her new farm.
The first instruction was to continually apply oxygen. The second was to liberally apply water. And the third, the third, but most important instruction to Alice, was to gingerly, but daily, apply energy. Alice, being as bright as the sun, understood fairy god-mother. Alice had one question. She knew where to get air, she knew how to obtain water, but she was not quite sure where she could get energy.
Alice thought hard about how to get energy for her biosphere. At first Alice tried to plug her biosphere into to the electrical outlet. This worked for awhile, until one day the power went out. Alice became concerned for she loved her biosphere. “Oh me”, she exclaimed, “ what do I do, from where will the new power come?” It had become dark in her world.
At this time, a lighting storm gathered outside of Alice’s house. This was the storm that had stopped the electricity to her biosphere. Alice was upset by the storm. She was mad that the storm had stopped the power. She was afraid of what would happen to the creatures of her new world. She loved her creatures. She loved her world.
Alice began crying, fearful in the darkness. She screamed to the nature storm, “stop, stop, you are hurting my creatures.” Alice became very sad. Then Alice remembered something her friend Siddhartha had once told her. Siddhartha was another very precocious child, he was Alice’s best friend. Siddhartha had said, “better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness”. Alice now knew what to do.
She looked for a candle and found a large white one. She then looked for a lighter or a match, but there was none. Becoming more and more distressed, Alice looked outside her window and saw that the lightening storm had set a small thorn bush on fire. She grabbed the candle and ran out to the bush to ignite it. She completed her task and went back to her biosphere to share the power. It worked! The biosphere now had energy. Then Alice became amazed at what she saw. The creatures of her world, seeing the candle light, began to light up themselves. Her new world had discovered bioluminescence.
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