January 2013 Archives

Did you get the flu shot? This year's flu season started early and with a vengeance. How effective is the vaccine against the influenza making the rounds? Using an online bioinformatics tool, students can analyze flu data from previous years and make their own predictions.

This year's flu season is proving to be one of the worst in the last decade. Outbreak of the flu has been reported in most states, but this year's flu hit particularly hard in some northeastern states. In mid-January, NewYorkDailyNews.com reported startling statistics about the prevalence of flu in New York: "During last year's entire flu season, only 4,400 cases were reported. So far this season, there have been more than 15,000—an increase of close to 250%." A recent New York Times article ran with a headline that termed the number of deaths related to this year's flu as epidemic in scale. Both New York and Boston, MA declared a state of emergency due to flu this January.

Severity of the outbreak varies across the country, but a look at Google's Flu Trends site for the United States shows a predominantly "red" map (compared to the global map). While some reports claim that flu season may be peaking, other sources caution that the season is not over—and there is still time for the flu shot to be helpful. According to the CDC, there is still vaccine to go around. Of the 145 million doses produced for this year, the CDC reports that "as of January 18, 2013, more than 133 million doses [have] been distributed."

Verifying the Vaccine

Reacting to alarming flu-related news reports, people have flocked to pharmacies and doctors' offices in hopes of getting the flu shot before supplies dwindle. The question remains: Will this year's flu vaccine protect you from getting the flu? It's a toss-up.

Each year, the flu vaccine is formulated based on a prediction of three strains of flu that scientists anticipate will be common during the coming October-March flu season. According to the CDC, the 2012-2013 flu vaccine includes "an influenza A (H1N1) virus, an influenza A (H3N2) virus, and an influenza B virus." This year's vaccine is already being tentatively called a success. In a recent briefing, the CDC termed it "62% effective," which they define as meaning that people who get the flu shot this year are about 60 percent less likely to end up in the doctor's office because of the flu.

How accurate were the predictions that led to this year's vaccine formulation? Students interested in genomics and biotechnology can do their own data analysis of this year's flu season using BLAST, the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. BLAST is a bioinformatics tool used for sequence alignment, a process by which scientists compare two strands of DNA. The "BLASTing Flu Viruses" genomics Project Idea challenges advanced students to do their own detective work and retrospective analysis of the effectiveness of flu vaccines from previous flu seasons as well as to begin analyzing reports and data from the current season (current-season weekly reports are available).

In this project, students can familiarize themselves with several important bioinformatics techniques as they look up gene sequences for the virus strains that were included in certain vaccines and compare those to the strains that were documented as prevalent during the same year's flu season.

Preventing the Spread

While getting the flu vaccine, proactively, is considered by many to be the best way to protect yourself from the flu, being careful to wash hands frequently and effectively is an important step in helping cut down on the spread of any virally transmitted disease. Reminding and better educating students about hand washing is important and can be turned into an eye-opening science project or classroom experiment. See the "Spread the Soap, Not the Germs" microbiology project for a glowing look at germs.

Parts of California play host each year to migrating masses of monarch butterflies that pass a number of months in protected groves, inspiring and astounding naturalists of all ages. The science behind butterfly migration is especially fascinating when you take into account that most butterflies live less than two months!

From those who carry a birding life list and compare the focal length of their binoculars to those who peer from a living room window with a pocket bird guide nearby, birdwatchers of all persuasions know that birds come and go throughout the year. There may be some birds resident throughout the year. You may see Pygmy Nuthatches, for example, even in snowy winter trees, and Northern Cardinals tend to stay put. But many birds appear, only briefly, at certain times of the year. It may seem like clockwork that the Cedar Waxwings and American Robins make an appearance in January or that a backyard Calliope Hummingbird departs from your well-kept feeder in late August. Similarly, you may hear someone talk about the return of the American Goldfinches, the first appearance of a Western Tanager, or the departure of the Great Blue Herons, depending on your location. This sensation of coming and going is especially true for birders who live in regions with extreme winter climates or with temperate climates that provide wintering grounds for transient species.

The mysteries of bird migration, and the ways in which they navigate travels of long distances to arrive, year after year, in the same locations, fascinate zoologists. But birds are not the only creatures that migrate or "move" from one location to another during a year.

Flights of Fancy

In parts of California, the winter months offer peak viewing of monarch butterflies. These regal orange and black butterflies travel south during late summer and wait out the winter in protected eucalyptus groves in places like Fremont and Monterey. So many monarchs arrive in Pacific Grove in Monterey County each year, staying between October and February, that the city has dubbed itself "Butterfly Town, U.S.A." In addition to local mandates and fines against harming a butterfly, and an annual butterfly parade, Pacific Grove has trained butterfly docents and a dedicated butterfly sanctuary where visitors can walk through and be amazed by the fluttering of thousands of butterflies high above in the canopy of trees.

A Monarch's Genetics

The butterflies that make the annual migration to California are referred to as the "fourth generation" of monarchs in a year. Monarchs born to the first three generations have a life span of only two to six weeks. The fourth and final generation, however, makes the migration, hibernates in a protected and warmer area, and then returns in the spring to mating and breeding grounds in the North and East to lay eggs on milkweed plants. From the eucalyptus groves to the milkweed-rich habitats, the cycle of migrating monarchs repeats, year after year, beginning with the return of the fourth generation butterflies that lay the eggs representing the first generation of a new year. That the butterflies that make the yearly trek to California or Mexico are four generations removed from the ones who made the trip the previous year is a mindboggling reality and adds to the aura and mystique of these fluttering orange and black insects. With no "veteran" traveler (or parent with firsthand knowledge of migration) to tell them when and where to go, how do they know? What kind of genetic imprinting provides the map for migration? How do the monarchs determine when to leave and when to return?

Making Connections

Unless you have a grove of eucalyptus—or milkweed—in your backyard, your monarch spotting will likely be at a sanctuary as a tourist outing or during the breeding season when monarchs cluster to habitats thriving with milkweed, a plant critical to monarch breeding and to the survival of newly hatched larvae. The larvae feed only on milkweed—and lots of it! In the two weeks before the larvae enters the pupa stage, the larvae grows to an estimated 2,700 times its original size (molting multiple times in the process). What would happen if the milkweed patches the monarchs return to each year disappeared?

While planting certain flowers, or your own row of milkweed bushes, might draw more butterflies to your backyard during spring months, students can more easily explore the role of food source and food preference by experimenting with the eating habits of neighborhood birds. The following Project Ideas help students investigate the relationship between birds and a food source:

• What Seeds Do Birds Prefer to Eat?: Backyard birders know that different birds eat different types of seed and may stock feeders with certain kinds of seed or seed blends in hopes of cultivating a specific group of feathered friends. (The type of bird feeder you use may also make a difference in which birds stop by!) If you are new to watching birds in your area, you can put seed preference to the test in this zoology Project Idea. This project, perfect for family, classroom, or independent science exploration, involves building a four-part feeder that makes it easy to monitor the types of seeds your local birds like best.

  
  With a bit of innovation, students and classes can easily modify and extend this investigation. The partitioned feeder described in the Project Idea keeps the different types of seeds all in proximity of one another. Birds choose, cafeteria-style, what to eat. How would bird activity and behavior change if you used multiple feeders, separate feeders at different locations, each with different types of seed? What might happen if you rotate the seed in the feeders routinely throughout the investigation so that the location of each seed changes?

• How Sweet It Is! Explore the Roles of Color and Sugar Content in Hummingbirds' Food Preferences.: Hummingbirds are adept at finding the sweetest flowers as food sources. Often their selections appear to be the most brightly colored of flowers. Do hummingbirds make a correlation between sweetness and visible color and choose their food sources based on the color? In this zoology science fair project, you can put this question to the test. Which is more important, the color of the food source or the concentration of sugar? Typical backyard hummingbird feeders are filled with a clear solution, but the feeder is often made so that it appears a certain color. In this project, you will create multiple feeders, each with different colors of syrupy hummingbird solution. After testing to see which color your backyard hummingbird favors, you can experiment with the sugar ratio in the different cups to see what happens. Not only will you learn a lot about hummingbird behavior and adaptation, but you may find that your garden needs a certain color of hummingbird feeder, regardless of your own favorite color palette!
• With a Little Bread as Bait, Can You Make a Bird Migrate?: Changes in the location and availability of a food source may force changes in migration patterns. In this zoology Project Idea, students put this idea to a hands-on test on a small scale, at a single outdoor location. After initially feeding birds in two different parts of a large outdoor area (like a park), students can investigate to see what happens when the availability of food in one location changes. How long will it take for the birds to find the other food source?
• Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Saving Migratory Animals: Changes to natural habitats caused by urban expansion can be devastating. When a species only uses a habitat part of the year, it can be easy to overlook or underestimate the impact of urban development and engineering. This science project challenges students to think about the relationship between migration and society and development. What happens when a migrating bird's wintering grounds suddenly disappear? In the case of the butterflies, what would happen if the monarchs arrived in October to find their eucalyptus sanctuary had been replaced by an apartment building? Or, on the flip side, what if the monarch's milkweed breeding grounds were plowed and replaced during the months the monarchs are absent? In this environmental science Project Idea, students use online Movebank data to investigate the habitats and stopover destinations involved in the movement or migration of an individual bird. This project helps students better understand the many locations that may be critical to a species' survival, even if the bird only spends a short time each year in a given place.

First-hand Science

Observing bird and butterfly behavior raises many questions about how they survive, particularly given their unique generational cycles, the importance of their yearly treks, and the specific requirements of their breeding grounds. If you have the opportunity to see the wintering monarchs, it is a sight worth seeing! And if you are curious about animal movement and migration in general, there are many Project Ideas at Science Buddies that enable students to explore further. You can get started by reviewing the roundup in the "Birds on the Move" blog post, and don't miss this student's story about tracking wolf movement.

By Kim Mullin

Try this quick and easy way to introduce kids to chemical reactions and polymers. One Science Buddies mom even used it for spur-of-the moment entertainment at a slumber party!

Got milk, vinegar, and twenty minutes? Then you can make plastic! Strange as it may sound in our era of petroleum-based plastics, up until about 1945, plastic made with casein (the protein found in milk) was very common. (If you have a knitter in the family, you may have even seen or used casein knitting needles.)

Plastic is a generic term for materials that can all be molded into many shapes. Plastics are all similar because they are all made up of molecules that are repeated over and over again in a chain, called a polymer. Polymers can be chains of one type of molecule, or chains of different types of molecules linked together in a regular pattern. When milk is heated and combined with an acid, such as vinegar, the casein molecules in milk unfold and reorganize into a long chain, a polymer. This polymer can be scooped up and molded, which is why plastic made from milk is called casein plastic.

Science to the Rescue!

Sherry Smith, Science Buddies Grants Manager and mom to 9-year-old Laura, didn't expect to be doing science projects at her daughter's slumber party. But when the girls woke up at 5:30 a.m., Sherry needed a fun activity to keep them occupied. Remembering Science Buddies' "Turn Milk into Plastic!" activity, she gathered the girls in the kitchen.

When Sherry described what they were going to do, the girls were immediately game. Says Sherry, "They are so used to arts and crafts projects, that I think the idea of a science project was much more exciting for them." That the "Turn Milk Into Plastic" chemistry investigation offers young scientists the chance for hands-on science and a creative and tangible take-away made it a great option for Sherry's sleepover contingent.

After gather the materials, Sherry heated a mug of milk for each girl and let them stir in the vinegar. The resulting chemical reaction created curds in the milk, evoking a chorus of "cool," along with one vehement "gross!" The girls noticed that one mug of milk and vinegar was producing far fewer curds than others—and enjoyed theorizing why. Most of the girls also liked squeezing the liquid out of the curds and shaping their plastic. The one who thought the curds were gross was able to participate by using her math skills when they wanted to increase the recipe by 50%. The polymer diagrams on the Science Buddies web site intrigued yet another of the early morning science crew.

Sherry loves that Science Buddies activities can engage kids who have a wide variety of interests, as happened at her slumber party. "In this case, one child didn't like curds but was proud that she could solve the math question."

Will Science Buddies be Invited to Next Year's Party?

Overall, slumber party kitchen science experiment was a big success for Sherry and her daughter. "The Science Buddies activity had much better results than store-bought science kits we've used in the past. The one mug that wasn't working was easily fixable and gave us way more to talk about. We learned a lot from the one that didn't work perfectly."

Will science be part of the entertainment at next year's party? It just might. And Sherry knows that with the help of Science Buddies, her kitchen supplies will be up to the task!

Science Buddies at Home and in the Classroom

The classroom activity Sherry used is part of a series of Science Buddies classroom activities designed to help teachers facilitate hands-on classroom science exploration in a short amount of time and with minimal preparation. The milk-based activity takes less than thirty minutes, including preparation! A full Project Idea related to this investigation, with in-depth background material and an experimental procedure, is available for independent student exploration.

As the 2013 science fair season gets underway, get inspired by what's possible for student science—and science at home—with a recap of last year's posts about science projects, science news, and family science.

The New Year is underway, and even during the semester break, many students are working with zest, determination, and curiosity on their science fair projects. As we welcome in 2013 and the coming months of the science fair season, here is a brief look back at a few of our favorite Science Buddies blog posts from 2012. Some of these posts highlight science news and ideas for student investigation; others contain strategies and activities for families who want to make more time for science at home. Whether you are still looking for a science fair project or have resolved to make science a more routine part of your family's daily interaction, we recommend this collection of posts:

The above images link to the following blog entries:

• Galaxy Games
• Parent Perspective: Understanding Your Role in Your Student's Science Project
• The Science of Video Games
• Encouraging and Inspiring Female Student Engineers
• Science Fair Projects with Real-World Impact
• Teaching Good Science and Engineering Habits: Keeping a Lab Notebook
• Science and Art: Mutant Sunflowers
• Putty Science: Family Fun with Polymers
• Family Dinner: Serving Up Science
• High School Scientist Develops Cancer Screening Test
• Find a Feather, Pick It Up?
• The Wonder of Bioluminescence: Organisms that Glow
• Arsenic and Rice
• Putting Your Eggs All in One (Dye) Basket
• Licorice Root, Please
• Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Diagnosis: Meet the 2012 Google Science Fair Winner

We are also excited about all of the students who shared their science success stories with the Science Buddies community in 2012. You can reach their stories (and many more) in our Science Buddies in Action area. Are you doing a science project this year and want to share your experience? If so, email Science Buddies at blog@sciencebuddies.org.