Think Like a Mountain (Journal #7)

The essay we were assigned to read out of the Sand County Almanac, Think Like a Mountain, begins by retelling a memory of Aldo Leopold's. Aldo Leopold and, presumably a group, were eating lunch near a river, when they thought they saw what was a deer emerge from the water. However, it was not a deer, but a wolf. Apparently, at the time it was better to kill a wolf then not, as wolves caused problems with the local farmers and ranchers, as cattle would be prey. So, Aldo and his constituents took their aim, and fired.
I have always been taught that we do not hunt and kill animals unless they are providing food for our table, or in self-defense. So, when I read the Sand County Almanac Essay Think Like a Mountain, it disturbed me to picture the massacre upon the wolves and wolf pups, that were causing no trouble. It seemed like such mindless shooting and careless killing. It made me sad and uncomfortable to picture the wolves injured by the inhumane actions. Not only did the group shoot the wolves unnecessarily, they killed them without proper aim, inflicting pain upon the animals; rather than, at the very least, taking them out of their misery. 

After the retelling of this memory in Think Like a Mountain, Leopold goes on to say that he has seen the affects of killing of the wolves. Since the ecosystem in which the wolves live(d), is interdependent, as the wolves died, or were killed, the ecosystem was thrown awry. The deer became overpopulated, as the they had no predator to keep the population down. Resulting in much more consumption of the low lying trees and bushes on the mountain. This range taking generations to regrow. 

Another consequence of the wolves dying out within the ecosystem, as Leopold states, was the crowding on the range where the cattle roamed. Although the farmers saw a loss from an attack on their cattle, the failed to realize that the wolves kept their ranges within healthy numbers. 

When I think about this and put it in terms of the Marquette area, I think of what a disaster it would be to lose the precious wildlife and forestry that surrounds us. By affecting on species, we affect all of the species directly and indirectly. By thinking like a mountain, looking at the long term affects of species extinction or interactions, we can make sure that we are preserving the nature around us. 

Bog Walk (Journal #6)

In class last week, we ventured out the the Presque Isle Bog Walk and Nature Trail. I had never been to (or, been consciously aware of being to) a bog. So, I really had no prior knowledge of what it would be, or what I would observe. The Presque Isle Bog Walk is great because it has so many informative plaques along the path and walkways that contain information about how bogs are formed, their characteristics, and what can be found there. 

Bogs grow in cool, moist climates and interestingly prevent the total decay of plant material. Bogs were formed by glaciers which formed shallow lakes. Along these shallow edges, bogs were formed. 

Bogs are highly acidic and are low in oxygen beneath the surface. Bogs also lack many nutrients within the soil. 

 Pictured above, is the pitcher plant. A pitcher plant is unique because it is a carnivorous plant. I had no idea that we had carnivorous plants in our area, until going on this field trip. Pitcher plants have dark red flowers and red-veined, cupped leaves that fill w/ rain water. When insects crawl into the pitcher plants cup, they are digested by enzymes secreted by the plant. Thus, providing the plant with nitrogen. 

Above, is my group for MSED 251, Life Science. We explored the trails and made observations along the way. We were also asked to develop a scientific, testable, and important question. This exercise was to help us understand the concept of a scientific, testable question.

Here, shows a plaque and a sign describing and explaining different parts of the bog. The sign on the right talks about the restoration of the wetland that is in process within the Presque Isle Bog Walk.

Lake Superior

DHMO (Journal #4)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hazard_general.svg

Below is a link to a video that talks about the dangers of DHMO. Watch the video and think about whether you would ban DHMO or not:
DHMO Movie
*everything in this movie is entirely factual

Not enough information?
This website on DHMO, is very informative on exactly what DHMO is and information on the controversy that surrounds it!
*everything on the website is entirely factual

After doing some research, what do you think? Would you ban DHMO? Is it safe for our environment? Is it safe for us?
________________________________________________________________________

----Don't scroll down until you decide!----

Here are some pictures of an adorable panda for your distraction purposes:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xiao_Liwu_im_San_Diego_Zoo_-_Foto_3.jpeg

________________________________________________________________________

If you decided YES to ban DHMO: you just banned water.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caniveau.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TauTropfenGerbera1.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drinking_water.jpg

We did this activity in class. Several people said yes. "Sure! We care about our environment and do not want anything to hurt it!" I was skeptical because I did not have enough information. (We did not get the link to the website about DHMO until after we voted, in risk of us using Google to see what it was). So, I voted no.

Many people fell for the trick; perhaps I would of if I would have received more information. Overall, I think this activity reminds us to get more information about scientific facts before we make decisions about future outcomes. It is easy to be deceived in our world with the mass amount of media we receive each day. But, with our scientific minds, we should look for appropriate resources and ask many questions. 

Mystery Containers (Journal #5)

Scientific Method: http://prezi.com/do6gzxyefeh9/the-inquiry-wheel/?auth_key=9ca52218e075b4c4def7a1fac83a5fabe24786c4

When I think about the scientific method, I naturally start by listing off hypothesis, experiment, results, etc. They are listed in a very particular order and are very structured. This is how I was taught in school the scientific method worked. But, in the grand picture, the real world around us doesn't ask us a question to hypothesize on. WE have to ask the questions. Everywhere we look, there are questions to be asked, and answers to be found.


This picture above is created and adapted by Carolyn Lowe.

It is not linear. It is messy!
The MOST important thing: QUESTIONS!

Scientists ask questions all of the time about everything. This sounds a bit like my nephews (they are 3 and 5). They ask questions about everything! About the craziest things! 
But, somewhere along the lines.. children stop asking these questions.. Why? Where do they learn this: home & school. 
It is up to teachers to encourage the questions- keep them coming! We can't tell them to stop. 





For this project, Mystery Containers, we were asked to look at the container and ask as many questions about it as we could, (container shown below). As mentioned above, it is often very difficult for adults to think of endless questions about one item. Our group did pretty well! We were able to come up with 107 questions! We asked questions about the object(s) inside the container, what they were for, what were the made of, etc. And, we also asked questions about the container itself. 

After asking a multitude of questions, we had to figure out, without opening, what was inside the container. How could we do that when we had so many questions about it in the first place? To help us in the process, Dr. Lowe gave us some testing materials. These materials included another film container, paper clips, pennies, tacks, small wooden blocks, magnet, etc. 

The first thing we did was listen the the original containers sound. How many items did we think it contained? What did is sound like when the items hit the wall of the container? We thought that there might be paper clips in the container, because when the object(s) hit the wall of the container, it sounded light and higher pitched. 

To test and see if there were paper clips in the container, we used our magnet and a paperclip from our testing materials to see how well they held together. Since the paper clip stuck so well to the magnet, we tried putting the magnet up to our original container, and then shook it, to see if there was any difference. And, low and behold, there was! 

When we shook the container with the magnet outside of it, holding the paperclip, we could tell there was another item in the container that moved around. We knew that the other item was not magnetic, and seemed to be lightweight. So, we tried the small wooden block and the small plastic balls. Once we tried the small plastic ball(s), it didn't seem right. We tried rolling them around in our test container, and it was obvious that they rolled. Whereas, our original container did not sound like the second object was rolling. 

So, that left us with the small wooden block. We were pretty sure that is what was in our container. But, just to be accurate, we weighed both containers- our original with unknown objects inside, and our test container with the paper clip and the small wooden block. They were nearly the same weight! So, we decided that this was our best idea as to what was inside of our mystery container. 

And... we were right! 

Habitat in a Bag (Journal #3)

In my previous entry, Living Things, I talked about a project that we started in class MSED 251 in which we put various things in our bag (shown below), wrapped them up in damp paper towel, put them in the window- and waited to see what would happen!

We made observations the first day about the things in our bag. The bean- would it grow? The popcorn kernel- would it grow? We guessed that the bean was living, and would grow with the water and sunlight. In contrast, we thought the popcorn kernel was just a product of a living thing, and would not grow.

Today, we opened up our bag!

We were greeted by the sight of mold, all over the bottom (inside) of our bag- which made some of us nervous! But, inside the bag we had some luck- we had some growth. Unexpected, even! We were right in saying that the bean was living and that it would grow. We, however, said that the popcorn was only a product of a living thing, and that it wouldn't grow. Well, it grew! Which, upon reflection, makes sense. It is a corn seed! The sprout is pictured below. 

This is are the items, plant life, etc., that we collected and observed. 

This is a week later when we opened up our bag- look at the growth! The beans specifically thrived in the plastic bag habitat.

Here is our popcorn kernel that we underestimated- it grew!

I think this experiment is interesting. A great way to really investigate what characteristics make a living thing. I think that sometimes it is easy to forget, or not realize, that things are living- even after being dormant!

Eighth Grade Pre-Assessment (Journal #2)

In MSED 251 Life Science, we are asked to do a pre-assessment, "Eighth Grade Life Science Quiz". This is basically all content that is testable pertaining to Biology in the eighth grade. Wow. It is overwhelming the things we forget over time! I am happy to say that I passed the quiz... barely. 70%. My father is a high school biology teacher, who I had for AP Bio, so I'm not sure how proud he would be of that score!

Some of the content that really stumped me was classifying organisms as either vertebrate or invertebrate! Isn't that funny? The things that we hold on to, and the things that get sucked deep inside our memory vault. So, in order to rectify the situation, I found a website called Biology4Kids that has an informative article on the subject.
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/invert_main.html

It is also a bit stressful to realize that all of this information is being taught before the eighth grade! There is so much as educators we need to know! Students have so much more access to information, and that opens so many new doors for questions and exploration- which is great- but, somewhat overwhelming.

I am excited to dive back into the world of Life Science this semester and recall the things I had once learned, but not fully acquired, and hopefully learn some new information! 

The frog is an amphibian, which are vertebrates.

And the Clouds Roll In (Journal #1)

This entry is based on a reflection and personal application after reading "I'm in Charge of Celebrations" by Byrd Baylor

I am not a runner.

Sometimes I try to convince myself that I am. I'll get a surge of motivation, lace up my Nike's and hit the road. About .2 miles down the road, I come back to the realization that I am not a runner. 

But, one night, I was. Briefly. And, because I ran for just one hour, I was able to witness something. Something that I had witnessed one hundred times before, but never quite like this.

And, it was quite worthy of a celebration.

I live fairly close to the shoreline of Lake Superior, the most superior  lake, in my humble opinion. It is well known that the Gitchi Gumee is powerful. It can create massive, disastrous storms. But, when we live so close to it for quite some time, it is easy to forget about its' power.

The night that I decided to take a run down to the shore was a somewhat eerie night, the sky had a red glow over it and it was very misty- my feet were soaked when I got home.
I started my run, got short of breath in my run, but decided to keep going. I ran until I hit the water, or the water hit me based on your perspective. The waves were big. Not big enough to be dangerous from where I was, but it almost felt like it was building larger and larger; gaining more strength with every surge towards the shore.
I could see the glittering lights of town to the right and left of me along the shore, but they were dim. And when I looked straight out, I saw glistening darkness with an faded red blanket laying over top of it. I had never witnessed Lake Superior like this.
When I began to think about the massive size of the lake, it was frightening- like the water could reach up in just one instant and swallow me whole. No one would ever have known. Woosh. Just like that. Swept out into the water.

It was a moment that scared and humbled me. Mother Nature's forces are so much stronger than little ole' me. But, in the incredible strength, there are mulitudes of beauty.

And that is worth celebrating.  

Source: english wikipedia, original upload 8 September 2004 by Fir0002