PBS/NOVA Predator Invasion Documentay

In my MSED class we recently watched a PBS documentary about predator. This documentary talked about interspecific and inraspecific competition between species and the trophic level pyramid. Interspecific competition is compeition between different species. An example the documentary gave of this was the wolves hunting the moose in Yellowstone Park. Intraspecific competition is competition between the same species. An example of this from the documentary was the moose fighting for food/plants to eat to survive. Since there was an over abundance of moose, they were eating plants faster than the plants could regrow. This created a shortage of food which was causing the moose to die off. This created a competition for food, for survival. It also discussed how predation effects certain species in areas and how introducing animals that didn't originate from a certain area are effected and effect an area when they are brought in. There was a lot of content and information in this video and I learned a lot. One of the things I learned was what the trophic level pyramid was. What this pyramid consists of is at the bottom level you have the producers (plants), then the primary consumers, then the secondary consumers, then at the top you have tertiary consumers. I never knew what this was before but I enjoyed learning about it. This documentary was a great teaching as well as learning tool because it really helped reenforce and explain vocabulary we had been learning in class. Some of the species that were in this documentary were panthers, wolves, and bears! The documentary discussed wolves from Yellowstone Park. It talked about the original wolves that were there, but then also talked about wolves that were introduced to the area from another place. I understand the point of the reintroduction of the species into the area was necessary. It helped the  plant life in Yellowstone flourish because the wolves were eating the moose so there wasn't an overabundance of moose eating all these plants. For that reason I agree with the reintroduction of this species. On the flip side I don't think reintroducing these wolves to the area is ok. They started dying off for a reason, and I think it will just happen again. Reintroducing them into the area just seems like a temporary fix to me. The underlying issue is us as humans and until we fix the way we live our lives, we are going to have to continue to settle with temporary fixes.

Frog on a log at the Bog...walk

My class took a bit of a field trip to a bog in our area. Here there is a trail that leads through and around this bog and has signs posted throughout the walk. We were given a packet to fill out and help us learn about what a bog is how it's created and the difference of that area compared to surrounding areas as well as being able to explain the adaptations of the "pitcher plant" and why they exists and demonstrate our understanding of living things and the differences and similarities between them. I really enjoyed going through this walk. It was nice getting away from the city aspect and getting back to some nature. That is one thing I love most about Marquette; you can enjoy the city, but you are never far from nature and the peace of its quite. It was a little harder to enjoy because there was construction noises going on in the back grounds but that aside I did get to learn a lot. I have heard of bogs, I have seen bogs, but I have never known how they are created. I really enjoyed learning about that. I think the part that fascinated me the most was reading on one of the signs that in Europe, where they mine peat for fuel (peat is the remains of dead plants that collect at the bottom of a swamp and what the bogs sit on basically), scientists have found EXTREMELY well preserved bodies that date back to thousands of years ago, that have been found in bogs! It just amazed me how something such as a bog could preserve a body so well...and makes me think if we should be looking more into that and considering using peat to preserve specific things in the future. Overall the whole walk went well. I learned a lot and got to see a lot of really neat nature. We learned about the pitcher plants that I have never heard of before. They actually eat bugs. They are a small carnivorous plant that has little spikes in their flower that trap bugs. I was really fascinated by these also. Below are a couple pictures I took from the bog walk. They do not to the actual place justice, but they are still a pretty sight to see.

What's in your Mystery Container?

In class last week my group was given a film container (some of you might not even know what that is...wow I am aging myself). In each container was different elements. We were first told we could not open the container, but then asked to write down as many questions as we could possibly think of that pertained to the container and what was inside. Once we wrote down close to 200 questions (and believe me, we could have kept going) we were given a dish. In this dish were all the possible items that could be in our container. We had to use all of our senses (with the exception of taste) to try and duplicate our container without looking in our original film container. We used a scale, but found that to be misleading because the objects that we duplicated actually weighed different the the original objects. Once we though we knew what was in our original container we were allowed to open it. We did manage to duplicate it. Many times during the process of trying to guess what was inside I felt very frustrated. I was getting really frazzled by the unknown. the point of this is to simulate how scientists feel when researching and trying to make a discovery. The only difference is in the end, they can't open the container to see if they were right. This simulation really got me thinking about how much patience you have to have as a scientists. You are constantly seeking the unknown, and sometimes that can get really frustrating. I have learned that sometimes you just need to step back, and go back your original thinking, because sometimes you make things more complicated than they really need to be by over thinking.

The Inquiry Wheel

During our lecture the other day in my MSED class we discussed the inquiry wheel. Below you can see a picture of what an inquiry wheel looks like. As you can see there is a circular section in the middle that says "questions" and arrows point from that circle to 9 other boxes, each it's own type of category. Note that there is no specific order of this wheel. This is because when scientist are asking questions, they have no specific order on how or what type of questions they are going to be asking.The purpose of an inquiry wheel is to allow the scientist to always be asking questions throughout the whole process of whatever experiment they are conducting. If something with the experiment goes wrong or the results don't turn out, you may have to go back and ask different questions, but the whole point is it allows you and helps you to ASK QUESTIONS. The inquiry wheel is also flexible because it doesn't require you to go in any step by step specific order. The wheel allows for constant reflection as well as improvement which is one of the reasons it is so nice to work with. I personally have never heard of this wheel before. Then again, I haven't taken a science class since my junior year of high school. I really enjoyed learning about the inquiry wheel and I really think that it is more effective for scientist of any ages, but especially the younger scientist to use. I remember back in middle school hating science experiments because we had to follow a step by step series of questions we had to ask and answer about our experiment. If something didn't end up falling into place or anything like that then we had to change our whole experiment and start over on the series of questions. Unlike that method, like I said before, the wheel allows room for improvement so you can take the data or information you've already gathered and build from it apposed to starting from scratch like we used to have to. I really think it is a nice model that is helpful and useable for many ages.

What's alive?? You'd be surprised...

My science class conducted a bit of an experiment last week. The purpose of this experiment was to see if we could classify certain objects as "alive", "product of a living thing", "was alive now dead"or "never alive". We took a baggie and in the baggie we had a wet paper towel. Folded up in the wet paper towel was plants (with their roots) that we had gathered from outside, a piece of a straw, bird seed, sand, pop corn kernels, beans, cotton ball, penny, tooth pick, and a rock. Each of these objects we had to list in the spread sheet under one of the given categories above. We allowed the plants to peak out the top of the paper towel but they still had to be in the bag which we inflated with air and stuck by the window so they could get sunlight. A week later we gathered our bags and opened them. To our surprise our plants were still living and there were more plants growing!We had to now put a mark under the proper category these items should belong in. Our group got all but two right, but the two we got wrong were shocking to us! Below you can see a picture of the items that were in our paper towel. If you look at the popcorn kernels and the beans you can see plants sprouting out of them. I was shocked that our plants were still living, but on top of that I did not expect at all to see new types of plants forming and branching out of the corn and beans! I am still a little dumb founded to think that popcorn kernels and beans could sprout and produce a plant like that, in such short of time! I felt this was a really neat experiment and I strongly encourage anyone to try it with almost any ages of kids!

Dangers of DHMO...are there any?

I recently was shown a video in one of my classes by my professor. It was a video she had made discussing the dangers of DHMO. If you are anything like me you are probably wondering what DHMO is....well don't worry, we will get to that in a minute. In the video my professor talked about the dangers of this substance and how it causes fatalities every year to a number of students as well as how it is destroying certain elements on campus (making metal rust). When we were finished watching the video our professor had us vote whether or not we thing DHMO should be banned from our campus. Everyone but two of us voted to ban it. When our teacher asked those two students why they didn't vote to ban it they responded with "there wasn't enough information given about the substance". Their response was just what our professor wanted to hear. They were right, we did not receive enough information and it turned out that all of us (with the exception of two) voted to ban water from our campus...that's right WATER. DHMO stands for die-hydrogen monoxide, or in other words two hydrogen one oxygen (H2O). Needless to say most of us felt pretty silly. I personally wish I would have thought through a little more than I did and realized what were were actually witnessing versus what was being asked. The point of this exercise was to show us that you can't vote against things, or really on things at all unless you have enough information. Without the proper amount of information you might do what we did and vote against something that is actually a very important element in our everyday lives...like water. I now realize the importance not only in science, but in life as well, of having all the information you need about something before coming to a final thesis or opinion.