April 2012 Archives

By Kim Mullin

Tracking wild Minnesota wolves for your 6th-grade science project? When you live in Louisiana? As this animal enthusiast discovered, with the availability of online data and a Science Buddies Zoology Project Idea, you don't have to live "near" wolves to study them.

Animal Movement Study Makes for a 'Wild' First Project

Dakota LeMaire, a sixth grade student in Louisiana, was on the hunt for a science project when he came across Science Buddies' Where the Wild Wolves Wander Project Idea. Since he is a dog- and wolf-lover, Dakota was excited to discover this unique project.

With the information provided in the Project Idea, Dakota's mom ordered a wolf tracking activity booklet and map from the International Wolf Center. Then, Dakota tapped into the online Track Wild Wolves Database to record the historical movement of two wolves that had been fitted with radio collars. The information from the wolves' collars had been recorded over a period of about two years. Dakota's job was to record and analyze the data to discover how far the wolves traveled at various times of the year.

Marking his map with different colors for each wolf in each season required attention and precision, but Dakota loved the process. "I learned that wolves travel very far in the winter," says Dakota. "It was fun to work on this with my parents, and a great opportunity to learn more about something that I already loved!"

Dakota's project was a howling success. After first place wins at both his school and parish fairs, he attended a regional science fair where he garnered third place in Animal Science. Overall, Dakota describes his first science project as "easy, fun, and a wonderful experience."

Read about other student science successes in the Science Buddies in Action area.

Many beaches and waters glow blue or green thanks to marine organisms that create their own light as a result of a biochemical reaction.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing exotic tales from other kids who went somewhere on one school break or another and saw waters and beaches that glowed. The image of neon green waters created a lasting impression in my head. I doubt, at the time, that I understood the difference between bioluminescence, fluorescence, phosphorescence, and chemiluminescence. All I knew was that they said the water glowed. Growing up relatively land-locked in a mountainous area, the idea of glowing waters was certainly something mystical—maybe similar in mystique to the Northern Lights. If you don't live somewhere where you can actually "see" the aurora borealis, it's hard to fully comprehend what it must be like to witness such a display firsthand.

Today, though I'm no longer landlocked, I still haven't been anywhere with glowing waters, and my fascination with photos of glowing coastlines—and amazing spectral displays—remains strong. I am sure the aura of wonder that surrounds bioluminescence partly explains my response to the wonder of Pandora in the Avatar movie. How can you watch such a beautiful, luminous, natural terrain and biosphere and not catch your breath? Though Pandora in the Avatar is fictional, real hotbeds of bioluminescence can be found around the world. Bioluminescent (or "Mosquito") Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico and Vaadhoo Island in the Maldives, are two notable destinations for viewing marine bioluminescence. In the continental U.S., pools of bioluminescence can be found on both coasts.

I haven't been in the right place at the right time to walk across a glowing stretch of sand, but you may not have to travel far to find examples of bioluminescent organisms. My fifth grade student recently participated in a fieldtrip to NatureBridge at Golden Gate (formerly the Marin Headlands Institute), and a nighttime beach exploration gave him a firsthand appreciation of bioluminescence and phytoplankton.

Self-Contained Systems

What's going on when you see organisms that glow, blink, or appear to light up? Bioluminescence.

Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. A bioluminescent organism is one that lights up by virtue of a biochemical process. An example of chemiluminescence, bioluminescence occurs when a chemical reaction takes place between an organic substrate, luciferin, and an enzyme, a luciferase, which serves as a catalyst. The oxidation of the luciferin by the luciferase results in an inactive oxyluciferin and a visible light. Remove the oxygen, and the light goes out. In some organisms, the luciferin and a catalyzing enzyme (the equivalent of the luciferase) are bound together, along with oxygen, into what is called a photoprotein. The addition of ions, often calcium, turns 'on' the photoprotein. In all cases, the light is considered a cold light as it doesn't produce heat. And, colors of bioluminescence vary by organism. Green and blue are common, but many organisms produce other colors of light.

While marine-based organisms that glow often steal the show when it comes to photos like the ones featured in this National Geographic photo collection, many types of organisms bioluminesce, including single cell organisms, bacteria, fungi, earthworms, beetles, fish, jellyfish, and even squid. If fireflies, or "lightning bugs," are common in your area, then you've seen bioluminescence in action as the insects rise from the grasses at dusk, appearing to blink on and off like small lights as they drift through the night.

Making Connections

Students curious about bioluminescence can find many different questions to ask and angles to explore. Why do these organisms bioluminesce? Are the chemical reactions cyclical? Are they triggered in response to something? How long does the glow last? Are there conditions that negatively or positively influence the biochemical process?

During firefly season, students not near a bioluminescent beach, may be able to develop a custom science project to turn the timeless pastime of catching lightning bugs in a jar into a novel science investigation of bioluminescence. But another approach to studying bioluminescence, independent of your geographic location, is to use marine dinoflagellates. Dinoflagellates are single-cell organisms that use whip-like tails for movement. Many dinoflagellates are bioluminescent. By cultivating dinoflagellates at home, you can conduct your own first-hand studies of marine bioluminescence. In the Bioluminescence: Investigating Glow-in-the-Dark Dinoflagellates biotechnology Project Idea, students can study culture samples of marine dinoflagellates, either Pyrocystis lunula or Pyrocystis fusiformis, to examine the relationship between light and dark and the organism's bioluminescence.

Born on April 13, 1899: Alfred Mosher Butts, inventor of Scrabble®.

If you play Scrabble®, there are probably a few letters you groan to find in your tile rack. Maybe you find the "V" hard to play, or the "C." But when you look at point values, the "C" is worth only 3, while the "H" (arguably much easier to play) is worth 4. Of course, the three big-ticket letters, X, Q, and Z, are prized possessions in a game and, used wisely, can be combined with spaces that multiply the points of a tile or a word to generate high word scores. Beyond the point values, there is the issue of how many of each letter appears in the tile set. There are, for example, 12 E's in the game, 9 A's, only 8 O's, 2 of popular consonants like M and H, and only 4 S's.

Have you ever wondered how the values and letter quantities were determined? Alfred Mosher Butts, who invented the game in 1938 as Criss-Cross Words, spent a great deal of time analyzing text samples during the development of the tile set. Attempting to pinpoint how common each of the 26 letters in the alphabet is in the English language, Butts manually tracked through the distribution of individual letters in text from sources like the New York Times. Based on his letter-frequency assessment, Butts established the breakdown of letters included in the set of 100 tiles and developed the corresponding point value distribution used in both Scrabble® and an earlier version of the game, Lexiko, both of which used the same point-based tile sets.

Making Connections

Butts' assessment of the English language was driven by his desire to create a challenging word-based game. But similar studies are carried out by scientists and scholars to analyze samples of writing, determine authorship and historical accuracy, and pinpoint other linguistic, lexicographic, and etymological trends. Students curious about lexicography, or even the newer discipline of stylometry, defined as "the science of measuring literary style," can conduct their own analyses of literary samples—either by hand, as Butts did, or using a variety of computer-based tools, programs, and algorithms. The Computer Sleuth: Identification by Text Analysis project from the Computer Science area lets students dive into this word-worthy area of research.

April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes. But if you look closely, you'll find that April showers also bring creepers, slimers, wrigglers, and crawlers out in force. Every student's and every parent's tolerance level for organisms like insects, arthropods, annelids, and isopods varies. But the simple fact is "bugs" are everywhere—and some of them, like many kinds of worms, play an important role in habitat webs and biospheres.

Did you know that earthworms help continually process the soil in which they live, converting dead matter into nutrients for the soil and tilling the soil so that it's loose and permeable? Worm scientists, or oliochaetologists (OH-lee-o-KEY-tal-o-gists), know! By turning your attention to the dirt and what's crawling around within a soil-based habitat, you and your students can get wise to the value of worms.

Taking a Closer Look

Most classrooms encourage hands-on observation and interaction with different classes of bugs, worms, and insects, a process of acclimation that begins early. Younger students often watch the development of butterflies or cheer on their favorite isopods in ad hoc sow and pill bug races across their tables or through small mazes they've constructed to see how these bugs deal with obstacles. For many students, learning about biology, zoology, ecology, and the environment begins with early bug exploration and bug-based science projects—both in the classroom and at home.

I was at the Exploratorium in San Francisco recently, and an encased biosphere equipped with external viewing scopes encouraged kids to take a closer look at the "microcosm" at play. Whether peering directly through the glass or through a scope, viewers were invited to observe what is really going on in the soil, in the water, and in and around various plants. A casual look didn't immediately reveal anything other than the terrain of the habitat. An impatient viewer might even have said the dome was "empty" when, in fact, it was thriving with life.

If you continued to look, you might suddenly see the dirt in front of you differently and spot, first, a single insect or two. Then, newly aware of the nuances of the habitat, your eyes zoom in on another location, and you see that the habitat is teeming with different kinds of organisms. There were hundreds, or even thousands, of small multi-legged organisms in one section that I was looking at, all visible to the naked eye. I didn't spot them right away even though they were writhing right in front of me. Sometimes all you have to do is really stop and look.

Warming Up to Worms

This April, rain or shine, make time to really look in the natural spaces around your house or at a local park. Turn over a rock or a log. What do you see? Go out in the early morning after a rain and look at the ground. Find anything interesting? There are plenty of buggy projects you can explore with your family to get a better understanding of your local biosphere, but there's a lot to learn by taking an especially close look at worms.

Wiggly worms perform important tasks that are critical to the health and survival of other organisms. Chiefly, many worms are "decomposers." By eating dead plants, worms process the debris and return important nutrients to the soil. At the same time, by tunneling their way through soil, they keep the soil aerated, which allows water and air to enter. Thanks to worms, your plants and vegetables have a better chance of success!

The following Project Ideas offer a number of ways in which you can turn worm hunting into worm observation and informal scientific testing with your kids and students:

• Squirmy Wormy: Which Soil Type Do Earthworms Like Best?: Learn more about the kinds of soil that earthworms prefer.
• Feeding Earthworms: Do Different Diets Affect Them and the Soil They Enrich?: Investigate how "what" worms eat affects the soil in which they live.

• Going Green as You Clean: Are 'Green' Detergents Less Toxic Than Conventional Detergents?: Using grey water to water plants is a popular conservation strategy, but the environmental safety of grey water depends, in part, on the cleaning supplies that are used where the water is sourced. Test various dishwashing detergents in this project to gauge the environmental impact of "green" detergents compared to traditional ones.
• Worm Hunt: Isolating Soil Nematodes from Your Backyard: The worms in this project may not be ones you would normally pull up when you casually dig through the dirt. As this zoology project shows, however, they are common in most soil types, but which do they prefer? Safely set up a plate of E.coli surrounded by various soil types and watch the nematodes emerge!
• How Much Worm Is a Worm?: This project is not for the faint of heart, but the fact is... worms can regenerate body parts. Students can explore regeneration and think about "how" this process works and "how" it is controlled.
• Get Rid of Those Leftovers: How Much Organic Waste Can Composting Worms Eat?*: Most of us are familiar with the "green can," and responsible composting strategies are taught early in many school and home settings. But organic waste, too, creates environmental concerns. Certain kinds of worms can make a difference in the processing of organic waste.

Share Your Own Tips for Family Science!

Earth Day is coming up this month. While any day is a great day to talk about ecology and the environment with your students and kids, we especially encourage a bit of extra attention in April. If you do something bug-oriented with your students, we'd love to hear how it went, what you observed, what they learned, and what made it fun. Share your stories by emailing a short summary of your experience to scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org. We may feature your story, activity, or idea in an upcoming newsletter!

For some students, the most enticing science project or weekend driveway science experiment is one that explodes or burns—a project with clear wow factor and just enough danger to make it exciting. If you live on the wild side of science and X-ray science hasn't made your radar yet, it's time to take a heavy-atoms look at what's possible and where your curiosity might take you.

What do you know about X-rays? Other than that X-ray is one of the two common words associated with the letter "x" (the other being "xylophone"), many of us know only the basics about X-ray technology. You know that you might need an X-ray when you have a bronchial illness or a broken bone, that your dentist routinely X-rays your teeth, and that too much exposure to X-rays can be dangerous. That you wear a protective garment at the dentist to limit exposure to X-rays, and that everyone else in the room leaves while X-rays are taken, is a subtle but clear reminder that X-rays are not to be taken lightly.

While X-rays are a form of radiation, and radiation can be dangerous, not all radiation is bad.

Exciting Science

As a high school student, Kenneth Hess, founder of Science Buddies, was already asking big questions—and putting his curiosity to the test. For his ninth grade science fair project, he used his dentist's X-ray machine to test a DIY cloud chamber so that he could observe the trails of the radioactive particles.

While student chemists, physicists and engineers might experiment with an old circuit board, build an electrophoresis chamber, power a battery with fruit, build a light dimmer with a pencil, investigate the speed of light in a microwave, or carry out calculated experiments designed to burn, pop, or explode, investigating X-rays may seem a bit out of reach for your average high school science exploration.

But as Matthew Feddersen and Blake Marggraff, winners of the 2011 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and 2011 Science Buddies Summer Fellows, demonstrated, with the right precautions and the proper setup, advanced science students can safely and successfully pursue X-ray based research. Blake and Matthew have a history of exploring out-of-the-box science, their idea of weekend fun often taking form in finding the right science combination to create a safe but awesome explosion. Their questioning of principles and curiosity about chemical reactions ultimately evolved in a sophisticated year-long study of the application of X-rays as a method of creating inexpensive and more effective cancer treatment.

Using his experience building an X-ray machine with Blake as a foundation, Matthew helped develop a suite of new resources for Science Buddies, including a detailed blueprint for a DIY X-ray machine.

Exploring X-Ray Technology

The following X-ray and radiation materials are designed to help interested students learn more about radiation, build an at-home apparatus for investigation, and inspire initial research ideas that will put the homemade machine to use:

• An Introduction to Radiation & Radiation Safety: An absolute first stop for anyone considering working with X-rays, this primer explains the basics of radiation and walks through critical safety considerations. Familiar with the electromagnetic spectrum? Know the difference between non-ionizing radiation and ionizing radiation? Know the benefits and potential uses of ionizing radiation as well as the risks? How much radiation exposure is considered safe? What does Tungsten have to do with X-rays? How does an X-ray machine work?
• Matthew Feddersen & Blake Marggraff's ISEF Experiments with X-rays: A firsthand account of Matthew and Blake's history of science exploration. Their initial guiding premise (the bigger the explosion the better) led them to countless weekend projects and, eventually, to top honors at the Intel ISEF.
• How to Build an X-ray Machine: Building your own X-ray machine will let you perform a variety of experiments. This guide, based on the homemade machine Matthew and Blake built as high school seniors, offers all you need to get started planning your machine, buying materials, and then constructing, testing, and troubleshooting your DIY radiation equipment.
• Zapping Yeast with X-rays*: This abbreviated project idea offers students a launch point for developing a science project that explores the interaction between X-rays and baker's yeast, a common microorganism.
• Developing Images with X-rays*: This abbreviated project idea offers suggested paths of exploration for students interested in taking and developing X-rays that are high resolution and offer strong contrast. Students can also explore questions related to how easily X-ray radiation passes through certain types of materials.

A year after an egg-based impromptu family science exploration, this science mom prepares for the next phase of her family's hard-boiled egg and dye bath testing: natural dyes.

My hastily scrawled grocery list over the weekend included eggs and egg dye. After a count of eggs still in the fridge, I ended up not getting the eggs, but I did check out the choices of dyes available at the store. Surprisingly, there are not that many options. Commercial egg dyeing kits seem to not have changed dramatically in the last decade. You can tie-dye your eggs, shrink wrap them in plastic wrappers, draw on them with a white crayon before dropping them in their dye baths, or use stickers, glitter, and glue for added visual boost—or to disguise splotchy dye-jobs or fingerprints created by impatient hands.

A More Natural Approach

Studying the boxes on the display in front of me, I recalled my excursion into depths of egg boiling last year—and a photo I used of beautiful eggs dyed with natural ingredients like beets and tumeric. Underwhelmed by the sticker and glitter-approach to decorating eggs lining the shelves, I thought, with rising conviction, of the deep, rich, natural tones of the eggs I spotted last year and decided we should try it.

I picked up a slimmed down set of cups and tablets, just in case. But it doesn't take much searching to realize that there is a lot of potential in natural dyeing. The Martha Stewart site has a short list of favorite ingredients for natural dyeing, from onions to coffee. The Better Homes and Gardens site contains an extensive flower-, fruit-, spice-, and vegetable-based list of All-Natural Easter Egg Dye Recipes. Finally, for the visual-minded (like me), the photos in this blog post show the sheer range of wonderful tone and hue possible with natural dyeing. The post also dives into the science behind the dyeing, with particular attention to the pH of the ingredients and dye baths, which is critical to the uptake of the dye and the intensity of color you'll see (even with commercial tablets).

(I forgot to get white vinegar. I think they really should put it next to the dye packs for convenience!)

A Lifetime of Icky Green Hard-boiled Eggs

In the course of a year, we don't boil that many eggs. Deviled eggs and egg salad aren't foods commonly found in our fridge or on the table. Basically, once a year, I'm faced with the task of boiling a few dozen eggs for Easter—hoping they don't crack and ooze in the process.

Last year I documented our initial impromptu investigation and our quest for the perfect technique for hard-boiling an egg. We defined the golden chalice of our search as eggs that were not cracked, were yellow inside instead of sickly green, and were, on the whole, less stinky. We then moved from testing hard-boiling techniques to exploring the role of vinegar (and acidity) in the dyeing process. I chronicled the story of our eggs, and our informal scientific study, on the Science Buddies blog. After all, moments and activities like these are wonderful opportunities for family science. And now, here it is, egg-dyeing time again.

Last year's blog post gives me a roadmap for repeating and extending our testing this year with my young scientists. If I can gather the ingredients, I think we'll try the natural dyeing approach this time around, too. And then, we'll stack the eggs in a bowl—leaving them out for no more than two hours—and enjoy filling, hiding, and re-hiding plastic ones. We basically dye a dozen or so "just because"!

Making Connections

If your family will be dyeing or boiling eggs this month, there are a number of related questions you might ask and experiments you might consider. The following project ideas and resources give you additional chickenfeed as you build a stockpile of egg-related topics of conversation, perfect for talking over while you wait for the eggs to take on rich color:

• Egg-cellently Cooked Eggs: The Process of Soft-Boiling an Egg: What's the best way to soft-boil an egg? (Note: this project offers an excellent procedural blueprint for doing a more formal investigation of hard-boiling techniques.)

• Egg Substitutes: What role does an egg play in cooking? Can artificial eggs work equally well?

• Eggs and Hen's Diet: Can You Get Bigger Eggs for Peanuts?: Is there a relationship between what goes into the chickenfeed you use and the size of the eggs produced? What additives make a positive difference in egg size?