Category Archives: nature

Journey North & Citizen Science

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One of the most effective ways to teach pupils about science is go beyond simply reading about science and have learners actually do the work of scientists by immersing them in citizen science. January is a great month to help students take on the role of citizen scientists. How? Simply point pupils to the Journey North site (a free, web-based program sponsored by Annenberg Learner). Journey North participants do what scientists do. They do science. Learners make field observations, collect data, and contribute valuable information to ongoing, worldwide studies.

Journey North

Related topics:

  • Another great citizen science project to involve students in is the Great Backyard Bird Count. The GBBC gets underway beginning February (15th to 18th, to be exact).
  • If the GBBC is of interest to you, be sure to visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and sign up for a bird-watching calendar that was created for the 2012-13 season of Project FeederWatch, a winter-long survey of birds at feeders across the U.S. and Canada. Be sure to drop by the NestCams portion of the site, too.
  • Consider visiting the Citizen Science Alliance site. The CSA, describes itself as “a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop, manage and utilise internet-based citizen science projects in order to further science itself, and the public understanding of both science and of the scientific process.”

Python Counterstrike: Squirrel Ambush

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Kurt Grandis, a soft-spoken software engineer from North Carolina, delivered a humorous and informative presentation at PyCon 2012. PyCon is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python programming language. During the course of his presentation, Militarizing Your Backyard with Python: Computer Vision and the Squirrel Hordes, Kurt describes how participating in citizen science (ala the Backyard Bird Count) led him to use Python to tap into computer vision libraries and build an automated sentry water cannon capable of soaking bushy-tailed backyard bandits.

Related Resources:

  • Kurt mentions OpenCV in his presentation. What is it? The Wikipedia entry for OpenCV (or Open Source Computer Vision Library) states that it “is a library of programming functions mainly aimed at real time computer vision.”
  • He also talks about support vector machines (SVM) as a means of analyzing images so as to recognize and distinguish bird shapes from squirrel shapes.
  • Canny edge detection also comes into play.
  • NumPy (also mentioned in the presentation) is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python.

 

Citizen-Science After Dark: GLOBE at Night

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Globe At Night

Want to participate in an international citizen-science campaign designed to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution? Check out the GLOBE at Night program. The program encourages interested individuals to measure their night sky brightness and submit their observations. Contributors may share their findings to via a computer or smart phone. Why is this citizen-science campaign important? Light pollution affects energy consumption, wildlife, health, and our ability to appreciate the heavens.

Related Resources:

Foiling Foreign Foliage: Invasive Plant Atlas

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Invasive Plant Atlas

The invaders are here. Actually, they’ve been here. Not only that, they’ve put down roots. The University of Georgia’s Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health (a collaborative project with the Plant Conservation Alliance‘s Alien Plant Working Group, the folks behind Weeds Gone Wild) maintains a database of information about the perniciously pesky plants that invade natural areas in the U.S. The database, known as the Invasive Plant Atlas, contains a wealth of useful information for students interested in ecology and the effects of organisms that end up where they shouldn’t be.

Meet the Beetles: Mike Libby’s Insect Lab Studio

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Meet the BeetlesWhile others may be trying to get rid of any number of six-legged critters, artist Mike Libby is busily constructing them. His site, Insect Lab Studio, hosts images of mechanical creations that fascinate and evoke thoughts of science-fiction steeped in steampunk fauna. The cog and mainspring creepy-crawlies Libby assembles are beautiful and and instructive. His quasi-robotic works make viewers want to know more about their real-world counterparts. Fly over to  Insect Lab Studio and see what the buzz is all about.

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Soaring Back from Certain Death: the Cahow

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Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés

Oviedo

In 1515, not too far from Bermuda, aboard a sea-going vessel bound for San Domingo, an anxious 37 year old fellow paced up and down the deck. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés wanted very much to make landfall. The nearby island fascinated Oviedo. Before 1505, no one in Europe had even known of its existence. The isle was so close. Yet, Oviedo’s ship was held at bay by less than accommodating winds. To pass the the time constructively, he observed a peculiar species of bird that was adept at feasting upon flying fishes.

The avian object that pleasantly distracted Oviedo’s is now known as the cahow (Pterodroma cahow or Bermuda petrel). In the year Oviedo observed the species, the birds most likely probably numbered well over a million. Though fun to watch, the birds were a source of an eerie nocturnal cries that spooked early Spanish seafarers. Owing to superstition–the sailors thought the isles were inhabited by devils–the Spanish steadfastly refused to colonize the islands. This turn of events bought the cahow a little time.

The respite was very brief.

The English had no problem settling down in the area. What followed was bad news for cahows. The birds and their eggs were easy prey for British inhabitants and the invasive dogs, cats, and rats that were brought over with settlers. So many birds were lost to predation that, by 1615, they were thought to be completely extinct.

But then, something remarkable happened. young cahow

In 1945 a full-grown cahow washed up on the beach at Cooper’s Island, Bermuda. The event prompted a noted ornithologist named Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy of the American Museum of Natural History to mount and lead an expedition to search for evidence of the bird’s existence. Being an amiable fellow, Murphy invited a thoughtful, adventure-seeking boy to come along. On January 8, 1951, that 15 year old boy helped Cushman re-discover the bird. The event was so moving to young David Wingate that he dedicated his life to bringing the cahow back from the edge of destruction.

Image of David Wingate as a young man

David Wingate

The story is related in Lucinda Spurling’s moving 2006 documentary Rare Bird. The exciting documentary tells how a species of bird and a determine boy teach the world about the power of perseverance. Despite invasive species, the poisonous pesticide DDT, and unbridled development and the looming threat of climate change, the cahow and its champion refuse to give up.

Related resources:

  • Official site for the Rare Bird documentary
  • Audubon works to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.
  • ARKive has an amazing collection of organisms from all over the earth, including the cahow

History, Poetry, Music, Math, and Science…a Perfect Storm of Learning

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Edmund_Fitzgerald_NOAA

On this day, November 10th, in 1975, the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald (a taconite carrier) sank during a storm on Lake Superior. All of the crew, 29 nine men, perished. The event was memorialized in the lyrics of singer Gordon Lightfoot‘s popular ballad, the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Though sad, this historical event presents an engrossing opportunity for students and teachers to collaborate and engage in interdisciplinary research. It’s a perfect storm of learning.  Delving into what lead up to the tragedy allows pupils to explore elements of:

Diving into this and other historical events, using them as case-study investigations into why and how things happen, makes learning more rewarding and allows students to integrate technology resources in a more meaningful manner.

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Power Up!

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I live in south Georgia in the United States where cool weather is the stuff of dreams. With summer approaching, everyone in my area is cranking up an air conditioner or making plans to find a shady spot with cool, refreshing water nearby. It’s a time when electricity is in high demand. National Public Radio has an intriguing visualization of the U.S. Power Grid. This clever and informative resource will spark rich conversations in a classroom where students are studying conventional and alternative sources of energy.

Take a Closer Look: GigaPan

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GigaPan

Science, Social Studies, and Geography teachers who want to grab student attention are using GigaPan because the site has images so big, so rich in detail that students want to concentrate and carefully explore them. Whether examining a scene from Venice in advance of discussing the history of Italy or poring over an electron microscope photograph of an ant’s head for discussion in Biology, learners crave the amazing clarity GigaPan delivers.

gigapan-nav-tools

Supplying simple  navigation tools,  GigaPan makes it easy for pupils to collect, catalog, and analyze details as they wander about inside its panoramic pictures. When used with interactive whiteboards like those produced by GTCO, Promethean, and SMARTBoard, learning becomes efficient, effective, and exciting. The site is an offshoot of the Global Connection Project, (a joint effort among Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic) and is dedicated to eliminating barriers between humans and helping individuals everywhere learn more about our planet by increasing the power of images to “connect, inform, and inspire people to become engaged and responsible global citizens.”

Digital images are composed of a pixels (or pix as in pictures and elements). Note that pixels are not necessiarily square picture elements. Many people regularly capture images with megapixel cameras. Megapixel images are composed of 1 million pixels. Gigapixel images, however, like those used in the panoramic images featured at GigaPan and the Gigapxl Project contain 1 billion pixels.

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Mystery Gastropod Update: A Wolf in Snail’s Clothing?

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Yesterday, while walking into my office, I came across an intriguing snail. I wanted to know more about the creeping critter so, like any other 21st Century learner, I used a few technological tools at my disposal to get a few answers. I’m very grateful for the wide array of technology resources that are at my disposal when I’m curious about a topic that intrigues me. I make use of them on a daily basis. Of course, I could pursue an answer the “old-fashioned” way by

  • corresponding with experts via *ahem* snail mail (sorry about that–couldn’t resist the opportunity)
  • patiently waiting for others to write a response, address an envelope, and send the response via the US Postal Service
  • patiently waiting for the US Postal service to deliver the mail
  • making telephone calls
  • traveling to a center of learning (library, museum, school, university, et cetera) and
  • slogging through books and periodicals.

No matter what route I choose, using technology or tried-and-true non-tech driven researching, I can still get answers. That said, the skillful application of modern technology–using the best available new tools to get work done in the most efficient and effective manner possible–saves me time. It seems like a simple concept to grasp, yet I continue to meet administrators, educators, and parents who refuse to consider using technology to make learning more engaging, productive, and ultimately, meaningful. When I ask why, they tell me they are too busy or just don’t want to take the time to learn how to use hardware, software, or digital resources.

whatasnail

Well, despite what others think, I find the availability and potential of technology refreshing. Yesterday, I found a snail and wanted to know all about it. Today, thanks to technology empowered networking, communication, collaboration, and documentation, I pretty sure that I have the answer I was looking for when my adventure began. According to a very kind soul at Metafilter‘s unbelievably helpful AskMeFi forum, I got a response from Mefite Rosebengal (Thanks!) that seems to be right on the mark. I got answer within a day! That’s great turnaround time. I hope students have this much opportunity to increase their learning potential.

Now, about that mysterious snail: Rosebengal says that the snail looks very much like a specimen of Euglandina rosea or the rosy wolf snail. She goes on to say that the organism is a predatory terrestrial snail native to my area.  Oddly enough, even though the snail belongs in southeast Georgia where I live, the species has been nominated as among 100 of the “World’s Worst” invaders.