For those of you on the video mailing routes (the tapes have already been sent): each tape has a mailing route , usually with five teachers. As quickly as you can finish using it/copying it, use the mailing label to send it to the next teacher. Tapes that have finished their routes will be available at the Lawrence Library for check-out.
CHANNEL 1O in OSHKOSH
JASON Program 1:
Tuesday, March 11 @ 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 13 @ 2:00 p.m.
JASON Program 2:
Tuesday, April 8 @ 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 10 @ 2:00 p.m.
CHANNEL 4 in APPLETON & GREEN BAY
JASON Program 1:
Friday, March 14 @ 9:00 a.m.
CHANNEL 10 in NEENAH & MENASHA
JASON Program 1:
Tuesday, March 11 @ 9:00 a.m.
Thursday, March 13 @ 1:00 p.m.
JASON Program 2:
Tuesday, April 8 @ 9:00 a.m.
Thursday, April 10 @ 1:00 p.m.
Jennifer is scheduling classes for the TELEPRESENCE. Those classes that have already returned their preferences will get priority in scheduling their times. While May 5-9 seems awfully far away, we know bus reservations need to be made soon. If you didn't already return your Telepresence request, please do so. Those of you with hard copy newsletters see a star on the envelope by your name if you have signed up. Those of you with e-mail versions have a separate message. We also want to know what you want to show at the Telepresence. It is a chance to showcase your students' work.
Fox Valley JASON has its own WEB SITE. This first cut at a web page is up at http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/biology/jason.html. Our page has links to the Wisconsin web sites for the Oneida, wolves, sturgeon, Lake Winnebago and lake flies as well as to the Madison JASON site and the international site. Lawrence University senior Karen Privat has been designing and improving the site as we feed her ideas. We plan to add interviews with our local scientists, an indexed set of newsletter back-issues and pictures of Julie Dumke's class at the sturgeon registration station. What would you like to see here? We would like to have links to your school/class/family's home pages. Please send URLs to duckert@focol.org.
We have been asked for a LIST OF PARICIPANTS by some of the others at the workshops. Do you wish to share your name and address with other JASON teachers? Please let Jennifer know. We will distribute a roster of those who wish to be listed to others who wish to be listed with the next newsletter.
The HOMESCHOOLERS got together for an Icelandic potluck. Dinner was a medley of fish and potato dishes, and although monochromatic and bland, quite good and definitely child approved. They have also been to the Neville Museum to look at the glacier exhibit and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. The sub model directions in the Maritime Museum's JASON info inspired some submarine designs.
At HUNTLEY we have two classes working together. They are Mr. Klinkert's class and Mrs.Ruppel's class all together we have about 39 students. Every weekend we have a student go to Bubolz Nature Preserve and look for birds. My teacher, Mr. Klinkert goes to Lutz Park almost every weekend to look for birds. We all enjoy watching birds and recording them on paper.
At the BOEKE BURKE HOMESCHOOL, Erin has been especially interested in learning about cyanobacteria ( blue green algae ) and the food webs that involve them. Bart DeStasio will be mentoring her through her upcoming science fair project that will focus on cyanobacteria. Erin's other great interest centers on Norse mythology. She read the book by H.A.Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas, and found it to be excellent. She was fascinated to learn how pessimistic the basic world view of the myths is, and that the sun is regarded as feminine and the moon is regarded as masculine(a gender association which is opposite of what she has found in myths of other cultures.)
Hello, We are a 5th grade class in Oshkosh, WI (W 88 degrees 33'. 42" N 43 degrees 59'.06"). Our teachers name is MRS. NOE. We have 16 boys and 10 girls in our class. This is our first time participating in the Jason Project and we like it so far. Right now we are studying birds. We are making lifesize models of birds in art class. We have also just started learning about volcanoes and we will be making clay models of them this week. Our class would like anyone to respond to any of the following questions we are trying to hear from as many different places as possible. 1) What country or state and city are you from? 2) Are you making lifesize birds? 3) Where and when are you going to the teleconference? 4) Have you participated in the Jason Project before? 5) Do you like the Jason Project? 6) How many different birds are there in Yellowstone? Our e-mail address is noe@vbe.com Please write back to us. Thank you :-)
We are an eighth grade class at WILSON MIDDLE SCHOOL in Appleton, Wisconsin, U.S.A. Our school is about 25 miles south of Green Bay, Wisconsin, in Mr. Zimmermann's science class. The lab procedure was to mix water and flour to a thick pancake batter consistency, add a spoonful of sand and a few drops of food coloring, and stir it up well. We then blobbed it in three places on the map of Iceland and took measurements of its depth at intervals of 5 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 20 minutes. We then added another color of mixture to the first layer and repeated the procedure. After that we added another layer of the first color and did it all again. The results were that the thing would grow and flatten out as we added more goo. If two blobs met, they would merge to form one glob. The goo behaved much like glaciers in many ways, although there were marked differences, such as the fact that glaciers are not nearly so small, colorful, or warm.
Julie Dumke and the eighth grade teachers at MERRILL MIDDLE SCHOOL in Oshkosh have been doing an interdisciplinary JASON Project. From reading the Jason myth to visiting the DNR sturgeon tagging station during spearing season, the entire eight grade has been involved. See photos soon at our web site.
From: Elaine Meyer, Naturalist at Bubolz Nature Preserve (bubolz@dataex.com) Hello! I have been working on a food web using puppets. the Preserve has recently acquired a nice collection of puppets and I am laying out a written explanation on the use of these "critters" for the JASON Project Passport holders. The National Wildlife Week Educator's Guide has some great ideas on food webs, communities and habitat that would correspond directly with JASON. The Preserve is looking forward to working with passport holders. I hope the interest is high.
Lawrence University:
We have placed two videos you saw at the training session in the Lawrence
collections: Mark Boll's sturgeon video and the 8 minute JASON promotional
video. There is also a copy of a 37 minute "Introduction to JASON VIII:
Iceland" video that is included in the classroom cablecasts and video mailings.
The Wisconsin periodical notebook has four new articles: two from the Oshkosh
Northwestern about Julie Dumke's class visiting the DNR agent doing sturgeon
tagging, a Fond du Lac Reporter article about "Everything you always wanted to
know about lake flies," and the USA Today Sports page feature article about
sturgeon fishing in Lake Winnebago. The next issue of the newsletter "Eye on
Iceland" is in the Iceland folder as are some more articles from "Oikos 32"- an
issue devoted to the ecology of Lake Myvatn. Don't forget that maps of
Yellowstone and Iceland are here for checkout.
The political map of Iceland shows the results of a sparsely populated area. When we had this at home, we were amazed that we were able to find the locations of farms and hills mentioned in legends. There being so few people in Iceland, communities as small as farms were worth marking on a map. The 3d relief map of Yellowstone (in a cardboard box on the top shelf at Lawrence) made it quite easy to locate the Yellowstone caldera, and to relate the locations of the various thermal features to one another.
On order from Iceland -_Vatnajokull_, Ice on Fire, a 48 page book full of color photos of the recent eruption and flooding (jokulhlaup). Look for it to be on the shelves at Lawrence about the end of March.
Not only does science begin in wonder, it also ends in wonder. -- Abraham Maslow
The Webutuck Jason Club would like your help in conducting a study of several migratory birds. You don't have to be part of the official Jason bird field study to take part. All we want you to do is tell us when and where you see the four bird species we chose to study. The birds are: red-winged blackbird, turkey vulture, killdeer, northern (Baltimore) oriole. We are waiting to see when these birds return to our area in NY. We think the red-winged blackbirds may be the first ones to return and that the orioles will be the last. We would like to track their migration on a map. You can help us out by telling us when you first see one of these birds and where you see it (town and state). If you know the latitude and longitude that would be helpful, but it is not absolutely necessary. Just help us locate you on our map by relating your location to some bigger cities or landmarks.
Webutuck Jason Club E-mail: jd141@maristb.marist.edu Webutuck Elementary School PO Box L Amenia, NY 12501
Wednesday, March 18 at 3:30 Bill Nye the Science Guy, "Volcanoes" on PBS. Bill travels from Washington's Mount St. Helens to the islands of Hawaii to take a look at the hot-hot-hot world of volcanoes: what they are, how they're formed and the different types that exist.
In a discussion between Cindy Duckert (duckert@focol.org) and Kevin Belanger:
CD: For those looking for a SIMPLER demo, we used a large glass funnel with a long stem inverted in a pot of boiling water, essentially a large, clear percolator. The larger the volume of the funnel and the taller the stem, the more spectacular the results. We were able to observe periodicity, and relate the height as proportional to the volume of water inside the funnel.
KB: ...guess my theoretical training makes my models a bit too >complex to come off...I humbly withdraw my suggestion and silly diagram
CD: I don't know, my 12 yr. old son who was given the assignment of coming up with the geyser demo. He can't wait to try your idea. "It's more real!"
KB: Did you ever try using a different breadth of funnel mouth to observe >surface tension effects with varying diameter...that should (theoretically) >be interesting... ;-)
CD: We could only find a few glass funnels, so we're not sure of some variables. The single most important variable was water height to funnel height. Once the water boiled away much below covering the funnel, eruptions fell off.
Monica Hindmarch (hindmar@pax.axionet.com ):
There are a few models of geysers I have seen. The easiest is a
percolator...yup that's right.. the same process. another uses a glass funnel
with a 14 mm diameter neck, 84 cm in length (I.e. you need to make a glass
neck). The neck leads into a 1 L round bottom flask. You fill the set-up with
water until the funnel has 3.5 cm in depth of water. Then you add heat-burner.
Depending on the amount of heat. The time between eruptions will vary.
Jim Juech @ Saukville Elementary (sesch@execpc.com):
Another low tech method which does not use heat is to connect two or more 35mm
film containers with tubing. Put a piece of tubing into the top of the top
container. Put alka-seltzer in the bottom container. Add water to the top
container-watch as the water goes down the tube hits the alka-seltzer the
reaction pushes the fizz up the tube and out the tube in the top container.
You can play around with different chambers by having more than two containers
hooked up. Clear film containers are great for seeing the reaction as the
water hits the bottom and the fizz starts back up. You can also block tubes
just as the plumbing in Yellowstone changes.
Bernice Gardiner (brng2@Lehigh.EDU ) at Lehigh University:
Here is a simple way to make a geyser. Materials: 2 tablet pack of alka
seltzer, 2 clear film canisters, l clear tube, colored water, dropper or straw,
solution made of 2 liters of water, 2 drops blue dye and 1 drop soap. 1.
Start by making a hole in the top of one canister and a hole in the top and
bottom of the other canister. 2. Slide the clear tube into the bottom of the
canister. 3. Crush the alka seltzer tablets, place one whole crushed tablet
into each of the canisters. 4. Take the top off the container with one hole
and slide the other end of the tube through it. 5. Cover the top of the top
container with water with an eyedropper to seal the system. 6. Quickly fill
the bottom container with water and put the lid on. 7. Stand back and observe
the reaction. Note results.
(Don't forget the geyser handout we got from geologist Dr. George Smith!)
"In the centre of Iceland there are only three kinds of scenery - Stones, More Stones, and All Stones. ... The stones are the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong color, and too many of them. They are not big enough to impress and not small enough to negotiate." _Letters from Iceland_ by W.H.Auden and Louis MacNeice, Paragon House: NY, c.1937
OSHKOSH, Wis. -- "The season went really well, both from the spearer's viewpoint and from a management viewpoint," says Ron Bruch, Department of Natural Resources fisheries manager for the Lake Winnebago system. Preliminary numbers show spearers took 1,290 sturgeon in 1997. "That is very close to what we would consider a 10-year average," Bruch says. "The harvest was high enough to keep spearers happy, but low enough to keep us within the goals we had set for a safe harvest for the species."
Most encouraging from a sturgeon management perspective, Bruch says, was that the harvest of mature females -- defined as 55 inches and larger -- dropped to 35 percent of the total harvest this season, compared to previous seasons when mature females made up almost half of the harvest, as they did in 1995 when spearers registered an all-time record of 3,173 sturgeons. "The best news about the new season framework from a management standpoint is that we achieved one of the main goals of reducing the harvest of mature females by reducing the minimum size limit" Bruch says.
Using the JASON curriculum is about doing interdisciplinary investigations, making contact with those who do the actual work, and following up those areas that have sparked interest. The curriculum has been set up to follow assessment guidelines and follow the national standards set up by science and geography teachers. You and your students are the best judges of whether it is working.
Experience with past JASON expeditions has led some of our teachers to these observations. "The telepresence is a nice summation exercise, but the meat is in the connections you make at the local level. We did a water quality assessment of the Neenah Slough, tracing its watershed and path to join the Fox River. When we saw the watershed from an airplane , we really had a true understanding of our little slough -the slough was connected to the Fox river which ran into Green Bay, and the Great Lakes. We knew from the map how the Great Lakes led through the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic and the rest of the world. We saw how the sludge ponds were separated by a few feet from the waterway, how chromium was being illegally dumped to pollute the water -this piece of the world connected us to the rest of the world and was ours to care for."
Generally, some familiarity with the investigations is necessary to get the most from the Telepresence. Its live nature means you never know what is going to happen. But the more familiar the students are with the investigations, the more recognition and "ahas" they experience seeing the JASON scientists doing their investigations. Alex Martin suggests doing at least a little with every part of the curriculum. (We understand that the black fly larvae and bacterial mats will be a key to understanding this year.) "Without those experiences, the telepresence results in a giant TV program." Yet "always, we end up in some place that was spurred from the curriculum." The interdisciplinary nature of the project nudges us into areas with which we are less comfortable. And the interdisciplinary nature has also meant that we run into the subject matter everywhere we turn. Sarah Gilbert told us of listening to a volcanologist on public radio and hearing news reports of shield volcanoes on Venus. Ben Casner remarked on the glacial flood burst that formed much of the Pacific Northwest. The wildlife/human contacts, be it the wolves in Wisconsin, the bison in Yellowstone or that status of the bald eagle in Wisconsin ,aren't remote JASON topics, but current events. "What I appreciate is noticing what makes up the culture of my own area." "Each year, the project has nudged me gently to try new computer technology in a friendly environment."
You are the judge of whether it is working.
The outcome of any science research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. -- Thorstein Veblen
Contact us:
Jennifer Santeler - Logistics
santeler@fox.tds.net 749-9552
Cindy Duckert - Curriculum/Resources
duckert@focol.org 722-4046