Practical Identification: Fossils

The geology students had a good time identifying selected fossils from my collection.  Some specimens were tricky, and some required a very close examination.

Two young geologists examine a fossil shark tooth.

Everyone easily identified the fish.

They needed a hand lens to see the fossil gastropod shell embedded in limestone.

The ammonite was also an easy I. D.

Each sample was classified by fossil type and identified if possible.  The students drew each sample on the station sheet.

That shark tooth.

We didn't have any petrified wood, but I promised a photo.  Here, Trip examines a former log in Petrified Forest National Park.

Need some books for young fossil hunters?  Here are a few:

Smithsonian Handbook

Fossil Hunting

DK Eyewitness:  Fossil

Fossil (Golden Guide)

Or, get your own starter set, and set up a set of practical stations.

Strings of Elven Pearls

It was so foggy this morning!  Silent dew drops clung to everything--the perfect day to take some pictures.  Click on the photos to enlarge.

I tried to get a shot of this drop as it lenses the oak tree next door in a perfect upside-down image in miniature, but was annoyed to find this bit of string in the image.

Then I took a closer look.  It was covered with smaller drops.

And soon I saw that these fine filaments were everywhere.

Tiny strings of pearls, they seemed...

woven along the yew...

as though a tiny elf had strung them...

on each branch,  for Christmas.

The Way In

I'm currently reading Waiting for Aphrodite by Sue Hubbell, which details the life histories of some invertebrates, but not always the ones I was expecting--the author lives in coastal Maine, but few of her chosen inverts are marine. It's quite an enjoyable tour of the phyla, though Hubbell can't resist the cliched digressive passage about evolution, where she recounts verbally thrashing an open-minded teen (!) who is (or was...) interested in the many facets of the evolution discussion.  But the experienced reader of natural history can take or leave those few paragraphs, and still enjoy the excellent narrative provided by an author who enjoys observing the organisms around her.

Orb-weaver--primitive, but pretty!

 After photographing a lovely orb-weaver the other night, and shunning the ragged work of the funnel-weavers, which resemble little more than cob-webs in a corner, I read the bit about spiders in Hubbell's book, and was intrigued by the notion that orb-weavers, despite the beauty and order of their webs, are actually (or, rather, theoretically) the more primitive arachnids of the two groups. So I went hunting for the funnel-weavers in my brush pile, and tried to see the beauty in their messy webs.  Getting a closer look, it seems, is the key. They may not be as beautiful, but it seems to me that they are very efficient and strong--a good plan for a predator that lives by trapping prey in a net.

 Here are some photos of the many funnel webs in my brush pile. (Do you have a brush pile?  It's a great way to attract wildlife!)

Collects more rainwater than an orb...

Is more densely built...

Is attached to everything nearby...

It's more like a sheet than a web, and even catches dusty droppings from a wood-boring beetle.

Hello funnel-weaver! (Agelanopsis) Look carefully to the left and see the funnel it has begun to weave.

Welcome to my parlor...

Can't get enough spiders?  Check out some books and field guides.

Swamp Day

 I know I have spoken many times about revisiting the same wild area again and again, in different seasons, and over years to see the remarkable changes wrought by nature. We revisited an area we have been to several times, though the group had never been there together as a group in the same season.  My autumn page has photos from our first visit, in 2005.  Since then, many of us have ventured into the murky mire.  We also had a fruitful bacteria hunt one fall in this very swamp.

View Larger Map


 Our hike took place in Shu Swamp (Paul lost a shoe in Shu Swamp once...), a small patch of freshwater wetland on the north shore of Long Island.  It's only about 65 acres, and has a fine flat 2.5 miles of trails.  This is a very easy hike for all ages, but is not stroller-friendly due to muddy patches and the occasional narrow trail lined with poison ivy.  But we intrepid homeschool moms who readily bring babies on our backs will have no problem...just watch their little faces for fear of catbriar and branches, and all is well.

The swamp is a favorite place for children of all ages, and despite the very swampiness of the preserve, it is not a terribly mosquito-ridden hike.  I saw two mosquitoes trying to bite my students, but a gentle swat on the intelligent pate of each child removed the threat efficiently.  Beyond mosquitoes, the patch of land is very much alive with critters more benign.  Moths and dragon flies--red ones and blue ones--caught our eye immediately.  We heard the call of the catbird, and saw a swan gliding over the glassy water of the open pond.  We smelled a fox...or perhaps an otter, as there are otter here...or so we are told.  (You see, in the woods, talking to strangers sometimes pays off--with information.) We saw the resident HUGE carp, and plenty of water-striders and more.  When one young man called out, "Trout!" an osprey appeared and circled as if waiting for a cue.  There were spider webs to rival Mirkwood, but the spiders were small.

I gave each naturalist-in-training a very basic data sheet (email me if you want a copy), and after a brief overview, off we went.

Some highlights:

Denizens of the (12 inches) deep--large mouthed bass?

Young naturalists compare notes.

Getting a closer look.

Taking the swampy temperature, which requires crossing a fallen tree.

Crossing the tree-bridge.

Another bridge-crosser.

We call him "Kneel" today.

Remnants of an old tree--most of the class would fit in its hollow trunk.

Many trees fell last fall.  The base of this one was about 13 feet.

The "class" poses next to a sign noting the tallest tree in NY State, at 167 ft.

That's what we did in the middle of August.  What have you done?  Did you get out?

Talking to Strangers (a good thing)

It's true.  I talk to strangers.  All the time.  And that's funny, because I am not at all outgoing.  But I have learned that sometimes a stranger can tell you things about himself or about a place that will fascinate and enlighten.  Most of my friends were former strangers.  That includes my husband.  Think about it.

We warn our children not to talk to strangers, and I even recall a song or maybe a PSA about stranger danger when I was a kid. There are books to teach children about strangers.  But we'd pick up hitchhikers (before it became illegal; or while in Canada or Mexico), or chat with strangers in the park along with my parents.  That is they key...with parents.  When so many children are placed in institutionalized schools with perfect strangers for teachers (think about that...the only assurance you have that a teacher is not a complete lunatic is the state's guarantee, based on subjective testing), a blanket admonition about strangers is a necessity.  Without the intuition of a parent to help a child discern in his tender years, his fear of strangers is extended beyond the normal range.  

Which leads me to this...The group I took to Shu Swamp yesterday was lucky to encounter the best kind of stranger you can meet in the woods (unless you are lost...): a biologist engaged in research.  While I was giving my basic pre-hike talk, Prof. Peter Daniel of Hofstra University stepped in and told the kids his fish story.  He had been tracking a trout using radio tagging technology. He told us how he had tagged a  trout a while back (assuring us he had used anesthesia), and was following the signal, but found a large mouth bass where he expected the trout to be!  Interesting, but not a nice end for the poor trout.  You can find out more about helping local trout here. You can read more about Dr. Daniel's research here.  Learn to cook trout here.  

He then took out a small radio tracking device and let the students hold it while he demonstrated the directional radio tracking equipment.  Impressive, and way better than seeing it on TV.  

Later in the day, I picked up one of my own children who had taken a train to meet me.  While she was waiting, she told me, she encountered a perfect stranger, and enjoyed speaking with him to pass the time.  He was an older British gentleman who was involved in the recording industry in Nashville.  With music and Tennessee in common, they hit it off.  No, not strange at all.

Deeper Nature Study: The Winogradsky Columns of Others (Video edition)

There are plenty of videos on Winogradsky columns...this one is pretty good.





Funny thing, though:  All the videos use the same procedure.  One if the great things about these columns is that there is no correct way to do it.  A variety of procedures may produce a variety of results.  Why not change it up a bit, like we did?

Seems they do them at Bronx Science, too, but again, with the same procedure.  See how this terribly easy project is made to seem so difficult.  But the girls are amusing:

Deeper Nature Study: Winogradsky Update

Last time, we had just set up our columns, and were waiting patiently to see what would grow.  5 days into the project, and here are the before and after photos for A and P's jar:

Day 1

Day 5

As you can see, things are growing!  The muck is blacker, and the blackness has spread to the gravel just below the muck level.  Surprisingly, the egg yolk is not attracting much growth--yet--though the egg shell has a fine black mist over it.  The water at the top of the jar is a bit cloudy.

Check back in a few days for more.  Hey, and if you have a Winogradsky column of your own, send along a few shots, and I'll put them on!

And speaking of things growing in jars...I just made my first batch of cranberry/pomegranate "wine" using this kit:

 Hey, it worked!  The results are less dramatic, but much tastier.

Deeper Nature Study: Winogradsky Columns

In the great gold room there were some teenagers

and some gritty sand

and some jars full of sand

and two little boys who didn't use chairs

and some jars and a ghost

and some sprouts, but no toast!



But really, we were winding down from our Winogradsky project.  Yes, you at home can grow lovely pet bacteria in your own jar.  It's easy--so easy that when the teens finished, and the younger kids were totally interested in setting up their own columns.

Winogradsky column (with very watery top) day 1.

We started out at the beach, collecting some samples:  Shells for calcium, water for--well--water, muck for bacteria (we hope!), red sandstone for iron, and some sand for substrate.  Back at the house, Alice had boiled an egg for sulfur...but we were not quite ready to go home yet...

Oh, can't quite see the Storm Trooper.

As we were driving back from the beach, we passed a farm-stand that was closed, and a field that reeked of unharvested Brussel sprouts rotting on the stalk.  Luckily, the ever-stealthy Mr P. had his Storm Trooper Hoodie with him.  He zipped it up so no one would notice him, and stole into the field with his colorfully-dressed friends, plucking a small rotten sprout and a leaf for our nefarious purposes (will it be a better source of sulfur than an egg?).



 Back in Alice's Test Kitchen, we sorted our samples, and added a few ingredients:  Sea salt (coarse), cloves (will they inhibit growth?), fresh water, a magnet to attract magneto-bacteria, and foil for those who want to see samples grown in the dark.

The procedure is simple:

Layer all ingredients in the jar, with an ample supply of cellulose (we used the cardboard from an empty 18-egg box, torn into bits by industrious children).  We started with gravel and sand, added cellulose, egg or Brussel sprout, egg shell or sea shell (crushed), muck from the low tide zone (any black muck or topsoil will do), and odds and ends...a pocket of sea salt, a pocket of pepper, a pocket of ground cloves (anything you can think of!).  And we s-l-o-w-l-y added water, fresh or salt.  Some left lids loose, some tightened their lids.  Some covered the columns with foil for darkness, while some left them in full or dim light.

Since I was busy with the teens doing the project, most of the photos are taken with a younger bacteriologist modeling the process.  Here's Miss C's work:

Note aforementioned ghost.

Isn't it amazing how everything looks delicious in Alice's Test Kitchen, even the muck?

Mr. N and his Winogradsky column--he added a pocket of sea salt in hopes of growing a pink halophile colony.

Youngest boy found the banana a more interesting subject.

 What happens next?  We wait and see what grows.  Check back, and see!

Deeper Nature Study: Bacteria at Yellowstone

I know this is a field trip that won't happen for my small group of homeschooled bacteria hunters anytime soon, but we traveled to Yellowstone a few years ago with my own family, and have photos to prove it.  This was taken before our bacterial-hunting days, but it's a fine photo of hyperthermophilic bacterial (archea) growth patterns, demonstrating iron oxidation (rust colored sediment).

Deeper Nature Study: Stalking Bacteria in the Wild Part 1

Nature study is the core of many a homeschooler's science studies.  Nature study for the younger set is often simple and un-directed; the children find what they can find and bring it to Mother for examination, or home to observe and preserve.  The child and parent try to identify specimens, and often learn how to use a field guide together.  It's fun and informative for the younger children, but what about older kids?  Just as highschoolers can benefit from intensive copywork using great books and technical articles, so a high school student can get laboratory credit for nature study that is specific and directed towards a more quantitative goal.

This year, I chose a few victims (I mean students, of course) to try out an addition to our biology curriculum using more advanced living books.  This is the first in a short series of blogs on "Deeper Nature Study."

A few years ago, I came across a terrific book called A Field Guide to the Bacteria by Betsey Dexter Dyer.   Dyer is a biology professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and has recorded a Modern
Scholars lecture series on this same topic called Unseen Diversity, which is top-notch and available from Audible.  Both are fine alone, but combined they make a formidable mini-course in bacteriology that is easily used by homeschoolers.  You will be relieved to hear that Prof. Dyer suggests that we not grow things in petrie dishes in our kitchens, so we won't; instead, we take our search outside.  In the wild, we have been able to discover evidence of bacteria everywhere.  And we are only 1/3 the way through the outdoor portion of the course.

The best thing about this short series of hikes is that it can be done anywhere, almost any time, with little modification.  Since bacteria are plentiful everywhere, and very few are pathogens, it's a safe and nearly fail-proof study.  You can study bacteria where you are, because they are there, too.

We began with a brief lecture on different kinds of bacteria, and the environments in which each thrives.  A quick version--cold, temperate, and hot are three measurable but wide temperature ranges for bacterial growth (one can get way more specific, and we did, but I don't really want to write out the entire lecture, and Prof. Dyer does it in more depth).   pH is another variable for determining the types of bacteria we are likely to discover.  The third environment we are exploring varies in oxygen content.  We could also add salt, and more, but these are the basics.  After my brief lecture we went outside and found some regular every-day common clover to examine.  We dug up the roots to find nodules of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the root system.  These are terribly EASY to find!  We found some lichen, that combination of fungus and bacteria that grows so well on rocks and tree trunks.  And we found some cyanobacteria growing in patches large enough to identify by color alone.  Then we hopped into the car and took a quick field trip to the local Quaker cemetery, where the old tombstones yielded more evidence of bacteria at work.  And that was day 1!  NB:  It is very difficult to pry teens out of graveyards...go figure.

Day 2 brought us to a local swamp, where quick running water, deep muck, and hard trails all had perfectly detectable bacteria for our viewing--and sometimes smelling--pleasure:

The light leaf litter smells fresh even though it is full of bacteria.

Miss A. is encouraged to take a deeper sample...it will have a different odor.

Right along the trail are worm castings, full of bacteria fresh from  the gut of  worms.  Slugs approve.

Intrepid Miss B. strives for the best sampling spots, mid swamp!

OK.  Crossing the swamp by log is just fun for Miss B., Miss C.,  and A.

Slow, clear water reveals a nice bacterial mat, with large air bubbles!

Miss C. discovered that the faster running water was cold.

Yet, who could resist? Neither P nor Miss B.

Bubbly beer-like bacteria!!

Ha-ha!  Miss M. captures millions of bacteria.

Tempting...but no, she didn't.  ;)

Next stop?  The salt marsh...