Fox Valley JASON Project Newsletter Vol.1 No. 3 CONTENTS Telepresence Next Year JASON IX Who's Doing What Resources Oneida Recipes The Beginning of the World from the Oneida Credit Where Credit Is Due TELEPRESENCE The more exposure your students have had to the subjects covered in JASON VIII, the more they will enjoy the Telepresence. It is in the recognition that the things they have done are also being done by the scientists in the field that the JASON Project achieves its goals. We will have students who have done projects and local scientists on hand at the Telepresence to answer your students' questions in the fifteen minutes before and after each broadcast. Please have your students decide on 2 or 3 questions that they would like to have our scientists answer. If you could have them written out (with your name) and hand them to an usher as you come in, we will try to answer as many as time allows. We would like to display the work you and your students have done (whether or not your class is coming to the Telepresence.) Did you make any posters, display the bird data you collected, grow a Winogradsky column, build bird models? Could we borrow them and return them to you after May 8? Contact Cindy (722-4046.) If you haven't already, get your reservations in. Some time slots are full while others are sparsely filled. Contact Jennifer (749-9552) to find a spot for your students. The Telepresence will be in the Stansbury Theater in the Music and Arts Building at Lawrence University. The Theater is the building between All Saint's Episcopal Church and the Lawrence Chapel. To improve the traffic flow, enter off College Avenue and leave onto Washington. For those students who are not coming to the Telepresence, remember that it is only the icing on the cake. We want to inspire students to investigate their world, to see the continuity between branches of learning and to become comfortable with the process of science. NEXT YEAR JASON IX We have the dates for next year. Saturday, November 1 from 8:30 to 4:00 will be our only Teacher Development Workshop. We will have the first ever training telepresence. The Student Telepresence is scheduled for March 18 to 25. The theme for next year will be announced at the Telepresence. STURGEON & LAKE FLIES Sturgeon are beginning to spawn. If you would like to go to a DNR station to watch the tagging and measuring or on sturgeon watch and guard duty, call Cindy for more information (722-4046.) Lake flies will hatch soon, usually near Mother's Day in May. They are remarkably easy to catch and very difficult to avoid. Knowing their place in Winnebago's ecosystem sure makes them easier to appreciate. WHO'S DOING WHAT Mr. Van Daalwyk's class (fraschoo@athenet.net) posted this to the JASON Student Net on Wednesday April 9th: We have been observing birds for three weeks. There were seven sightings of tundra swans the week of March 23rd. Several students reported flocks of a 100 or more. Swans were feeding in cornfields and flying Northwest. Robins were first sighted on March 10th. The robins are back in numbers now. Killdeers were first sighted on March 21st. There are numerous finches and other songbirds that have returned to the Fox Valley. Emily Gilbert noticed that April's National Geographic World includes an article on Iceland. A second National Geographic article on Vatnajokull will appear in May. Dan Casner and Kristin La Fortune are working with sturgeon videographer Mark Boll to tape the sturgeon pawn. Ben Casner has been corresponding with JASON's puffin scientist Chris Kovacs. He wanted to know how many feathers a puffin has - but no one had ever counted. Ben is now working on a puffin skin counting feathers. RESOURCES Dr. Bart DeStasio's slides on the Lake Winnebago ecosystem are in a folder at the Lawrence Library. Dr. George Smith recommended that we make available two videos of a pair of films he regularly uses. "San Francisco the City That Wanted to Die" is an older BBC production with some uniquely useful explanations of seismic activity and attempts to control it. Students might get a blast out of the Mamas and the Papas-style music. "The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes" is another older piece produced by the Canadians. It is unnarrated except for a "folk ballad" describing glaciation through the Great Lakes egion. It has the means for students whose interests are more musically, historically or socially based to make sense of much of the science we are doing. It also manages to present to younger students how the land may have changed in appearance over the millenia. The content of the words lays another layer of meaning to the film so a copy is included. Also at the Lawrence Library, _Vatnajokull, Ice on Fire_ has arrived. The photos of the ice caves and he path the meltwater takes through the glacier and landscape stir the imagination. JASON scientist Bryndis Brandsdottir is pictured. A detailed map of the glacier is quite useful. The pictures are smaller than I had hoped for. _The Birds at Myvatn_ by Arni Einarsson has more detail than the same information available at the JASON website. In particular, the description of Lake Myvatn is described for a good comparison with Lake Winnebago. While the curriculum and the Telepresence feature the black fly, Winnebago's lake flies (Chironomus plumosus) and water fleas (Daphnia) compare directly with Myvatn's lake flies (Chironomus islandicus) and water fleas (Eurycercus lamellatus). The cablecasts have been a logistical nightmare. If you have been recording from the educational channels, please contact Jennifer (749-9552) for a copy of the videotapes. Videotapes of Programs 1 and 2 are already available at the Lawrence Library for anyone who hasn't seen them. Programs 2 and 3 are still making their rounds on the mailing routes. Programs 4 and 5 have yet to be rescheduled on the available satellites. Please be sure to view or copy the tape and send it on its way for the next person on the list. We want feedback. What has been the most helpful or most useless? Example: you want more videos and fewer books. This will help in planning for resources next year. ONEIDA RECIPES Teachers from the Oneida schools told us that corn bread is always a good choice. Here are two others that also have kid appeal. Corn Pudding - a dish to be served in place of potatoes or rice 1 20 oz. package frozen whole kernel corn, thawed 2 qts. chicken broth 1/4 c. butter 1 1/3 c. white corn meal 1/2 c/ flour 2 t. baking powder no sugar listed, 2 T. worked 1 T salt 1 egg 1/2 c. milk Boil the broth and butter, then simmer for five minutes. In the meantime, sift together the cornmeal, baking powder, sugar and salt. Beat the egg and add the milk to the egg. Mix the mixture with the flour mixture. Stir in the corn. Bring the chicken broth to a boil and drop in the corn mixture a teaspoon at a time. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Watch over your pudding carefully because it burns easily. Strawberry Pan Cake Cream: 1/2 c. margarine 1 c. sugar 1/2 c. maple syrup Beat 4 eggs with 1 t. vanilla Stir in: 2 c. flour 1/2 c. fine corn meal 2 t. baking powder 1/2 t. allspice Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Spoon in 2 c. fresh or frozen sliced strawberries with their juice into14-16 spots. Bake 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Sprinkle cooled cake with powdered sugar or serve with ice cream. from: _Enduring Harvests_ by E. Barrickavasch, Globe Pequot Press, 1995 THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD FROM THE ONEIDA "The Creation" from: _Iroquois Stories: Heroes and Heroines, Monsters and Magic_ by Joseph Bruchac Crossing Press, 1985 pg. 15-17 Before this world came to be, there lived in the Sky-World an ancient chief. In the center of his land grew a beautiful tree which had four white roots stretching to each of the four directions: North, South, East and West. From that beautiful tree all good things grew. Then it came to be that the beautiful tree was uprooted and through the hole it made in the Sky-World fell the youthful wife of the ancient chief, a handful of seeds which she grabbed from the tree as she fell, clutched in her hand. Far below there were only water and water creatures who looked up as they swam. "Someone comes," said the duck, "We must make room for her." The great turtle swam up from his place in the depths. "There is room on my back," the great turtle said. "But there must be earth where she can stand," said the duck and so he dove beneath the waters but he could not reach the bottom. "I shall bring up earth," the loon said and he dove too, but could not reach the bottom. "I shall try," said the beaver and he too dove but could not reach the bottom. Finally the muskrat tried. He dove as deeply as he could, swimming until his lungs almost burst. With one paw he touched the bottom, and came up with a tiny speck of earth clutched in his paw. "Place the earth on my back," the great turtle said, and as they spread the tiny speck of earth it grew larger and larger and larger until it became the whole world. Then two swans flew up and between their wings they caught the woman who fell from the sky. They brought her gently down to the earth where she dropped her handful of seeds from the Sky-World. Then it was that the first plants grew and life on this new earth began. CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE Mark Boll reminded me that Clark Willick was his partner in the sturgeon video. 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 --- Cindy Lee Duckert, duckert@focol.org