SCIENCE IS ALWAYS CHANGING!

Big news. Scientists found a tooth in Israel that may have belonged to an ancestor of modern humans, scientifically known as Homo sapiens. The accepted scientific theory is that Homo sapiens originated in Africa 200,000 years ago and migrated out of the continent. Scientists say that if this tooth is definitively linked to modern human's ancestors, it would mean that modern man in fact originated in what is now Israel 400,000 years ago, which would change the whole picture of evolution. Further research is needed to see if this pans out. Anyone out there want to be a archaeologist or paleontologist?

SNOW DAY!

Prospect Park

I hope all my PS 230 students are getting outside to enjoy the snow. Ms. Seitz sure is! Decorate your street with a snowman, have a friendly snowball fight or go sledding in Prospect Park. Remember to dress in layers and wear warm, water-proof boots. Now, go have some fun!

I'm sure many of you have gone to the Pavilion Theatre. Well this is what it looked like on snow day. Notice they had to take down the letters from the marquee because it was so windy.

Prospect Park sledding hill by the Picnic House

Ms. Seitz all bundled up in front of her snowy house

SCIENCE QUESTION - HOW DOES SNOW FORM?

Snow begins in the atmosphere as water condenses into a tiny droplet. As more and more water vapor condenses onto its surface, the droplet grows. Cold air then freezes this water into an ice crystal.

Each ice crystal has a unique shape that depends on the surrounding air's temperature and water vapor content. If it is below freezing and there is a lot of water vapor in the air, the crystal grows six evenly spaced branches. More and more water vapor collects on these branches and freezes, making the ice crystal increasingly heavy. Eventually, the ice crystal falls from the sky, leaving the cloud of precipitation that it helped to form. As it falls, the crystal continues to grow by picking up more water vapor.


As it descends, the ice crystal can come into contact with warmer air that makes it melt somewhat. This melting acts like a glue, causing crystals to bond together into larger flakes, forming what many people think of as the "classic" fluffy snowflake. If the crystals melt too much and then refreeze as they get closer to Earth's surface, the precipitation falls as sleet instead of snow.

Once on the ground, snow will remain if temperatures are cold enough to keep it from melting. Glaciers that form on mountains, for example, are made up of snow that accumulates on the ground and eventually turns to ice.

What's the Difference Between a Food Chain and a Food Web?

A food chain follows a single path of what eats what. But most animals eat more than one type of organism so they are part of more than one food chain. That's where Food Webs come in. A food web is made up of interconnected food chains. How many food chains are in the above food web? Leave your guess and Ms. Seitz will let you know if you're right!

THE GREAT EGG DROP CHALLENGE

Fifth-graders were recently asked become engineers to create a protective container for a raw egg that would be dropped from 2.5 meters. The only materials they could use were: a Foodtown bag, three straws, six cotton balls, 75cm duct tape, two 75-cm pieces of yarn, a dixie cup. The students have come up with all kinds of designs--some have protected their egg, while others have not.

Why is this important? Well, think of your egg container as a bicycle helmet protecting your brain from a bicycle fall. A good helmet provides padding, which absorbs some of the force and reduces the impact of the force on your head. In other words, increased time applied to the force of impact will protect an object from breaking.  Air bags in cars do the same thing--they create a cushion between the force and you so you won't feel it as hard. Now do you see why it's important to have a well-engineered egg container?

Here are the results so far:

Ms. Robb's class: 3 survivors, 4 tragedies
Ms. Greenspan's class: 6 tragedies
Ms. Water's class: 6 survivors
Ms. Grant's class: 2 survivors, 4 tragedies

CONGRATULATIONS FIFTH-GRADERS!

It was great having you all for science. I wish you happiness, success, health and a plain old good time in middle school as well. Have a wonderful summer! Ms. Seitz

Bird Falls Out of Its Nest

While Urban Nature Club members were just getting ready to plant some lettuce in the school garden, fifth-grader Dmytro came running over to tell us that there was a baby bird behind a fence in the playground. We all raced over and indeed saw an almost featherless bird crying for its mother behind a fence. Since it's an old wives tale that mother birds will reject a baby bird once touched by humans, we all took turns sticking our arms through the fence so we could hold it. Finally a skinny arm successful reached the bird.

My first impression was just how warm the bird felt in my hand. Like I said, it had few feathers, so it must be a real newborn. It had a huge yellow mouth that kept opening and calling for food. Many of the club students, and kids at the playground, got a chance to hold the baby bird (and then, as instructed washed their hands). It appears to be a baby starling like the one pictured above.

We located the nest at the top of a building next to the playground and just above the spot where the chick was found. Apparently, the little guy or gal fell out of its nest. When you think about how little room there must be in a nest, you realize that it's pretty easy to slip out.

After holding and appreciating the little bundle of energy, we placed it back where it was found, hoping that its cries would help its mother locate it and bring it back home. I'll check tomorrow and see if it's still there.

By the way, these birds are actually called European Starlings or Common Starlings. They are not native to Brooklyn (although they're everywhere these days), but were brought over from Europe during the nineteenth century by some Shakespeare lovers as part of a plan to introduce the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works. These intelligent birds like to fly in flocks and wreak havoc wherever they go.

Calling all kids and parents!! Please help PS 230 win an organic garden. All you have to do is vote for PS 230 at this web address: http://www.organicitsworthit.org/join/newsletter-sign. Make sure to put PS 230 Brooklyn. You'll be signed up for an organic food newsletter, but you can always cancel it if it's not your thing. PLEASE PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! Put it on facebook, your blog, wherever! Let's see how many votes we can get! Happy Spring and Thanks!

NESTCAMS!

I've just spent some time watching two adorable barn owls in their nest....courtesy of technology known as NestCams. A NestCam is a camera mounted near a nest so humans can spy on birds without disturbing them, and hopefully, learn something about bird courting, mating, laying eggs, and raising young. The nest I was watching tonight is in Texas! I was hoping to see one of the owls fly out and bring back a nice, tasty rodent to eat!

If you want to peak into a bird's nest, just go to: http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams. Have fun!

YEAH! SPRING IS IN THE AIR!

I hope everyone got outside this weekend. It's 56 degrees right now and after this post, I'm heading out for a bike ride in Prospect Park.

The warm weather inspired me to do a little work in the garden this morning. I hadn't been out there in a while, so I enjoyed getting reacquainted with the garden while I picked up sticks, swept up leaves, pulled up dead plants, and then fed most of it to my compost bin. I noticed a lot of spring bulbs emerging from the ground, but the best thing was coming across a single, purple crocus in full bloom. The first flower of spring!

So when you go outside, take a look around and notice the telltale signs of spring--the budding of bushes and trees, birds carrying twigs to treetop nests, flying and crawling insects, weeds growing out through cracks in the sidewalks, the days getting longer. Spring is here and, yes, I'm glad!

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the big snow storm. I was feeling very stuffy in the nose, so I stayed in while my boys and their Dad had snowball fights in the yard. I thought I was safe taking photos of them from the back door, but wouldn't you know, the boys both clobbered me with snowballs anyway, which splatted on my face and neck and rolled into the living room.

While I was cleaning up the snow from the floor, it got me thinking about snowflakes. I love that they come in a variety of shapes and sizes, although that's really hard to see with the naked eye. Under a microscope, the complex shapes can be better seen. The different shapes are the result of differing temperatures and level of humidity as the ice crystal moves through the atmosphere.

Generally, six-sided hexagonal crystals are shaped in high clouds; needles or flat six-sided crystals are shaped in middle height clouds; and a wide variety of six-sided shapes are formed in low clouds. Colder temperatures produce snowflakes with sharper tips on the sides of the crystals and may lead to branching of the snowflake arms (dendrites). Snowflakes that grow under warmer conditions grow more slowly, resulting in smoother, less intricate shapes.

A really good snowflake book is "Snowflake Bentley," a true story about a Vermont farm boy who was mesmerized by snowflakes. The boy, Wilson Bentley, was fascinated by the six-sided frozen phenomena, and once he acquired a microscope with a camera, his childhood preoccupation took on a more scientific leaning. Bentley spent his life taking countless exquisite photographs (many that are still used in nature photography today), examining the tiny crystals and their delicate, mathematical structures.

So there you have it! Have a great winter break everyone!

GORGEOUS WOOD DUCK AT PROSPECT PARK LAKE

It's been a while since my last post. Sometimes I get busy and sometimes I wonder if students are checking out the blog or not. If you are, leave me a note. The more interest I see, the more I will post new things to the blog.

This morning I took a walk to Prospect Park. I wanted to check out the bird feeders that hang in the woods near the Audubon Center. I saw some chickadees, downy woodpeckers, a red-breasted woodpecker, red-breasted nuthatch, a house finch and other birds eating at the feeders. It was great. Then another person watching the feeders told me that there was a wood duck in the water down by the Audubon Center. So I took a walk there.

And there is was, among all the Canada Geese and Mallards swimming in the frigid water, a wonderful, brilliant wood duck! Luckily I had my camera and took some photos. Isn't he simply beautiful?

Most ducks nest on the ground, but wood ducks nest in trees near water, like Prospect Park Lake. They will nest in tree cavities or nesting boxes set up by people. They eat seeds, acorns, fruits, aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates.

The male wood duck I saw was swimming around with a bunch of mallards, who occasionally picked on him, but the wood duck didn't stand for it and occasionally pecked back at them. When someone showed up with bread, the wood duck joined the other waterfowl sliding on the ice for a handout. (Remember, don't feed bread to ducks. It's not good for them.)

On my way out of the park, I noticed a red-tailed hawk perched in a tree, but he didn't stay long. Before I knew it, he spreads his wings and took flight.