Professor Blue

This dia­mond­back ter­rapin is a native Con­necti­cut resident

What do we know about tur­tles?  Hard shell to pro­tect the body.  Check.  Four legs that don’t move so fast.  Check.  Able to retreat into the shell for pro­tec­tion from out­side forces that wish to do it hard.  Check.  Un-check?

Well, PARC — Part­ners in Amphib­ian and Rep­tile Con­ser­va­tion  – has called this year – 2011 — the Year of the Tur­tle because they would like peo­ple to pay close atten­tion to tur­tles.  Why?   They “…are dis­ap­pear­ing from the planet faster than any other group of ani­mal. Today, nearly 50% of tur­tle species are iden­ti­fied as threat­ened with extinction. “

Their hard shells can­not pro­tect them from loss of their habi­tats, inva­sive dis­eases, cars run­ning them over, peo­ple tak­ing them as pets, and so much more.

There are things we can do to slow down the loss of the tur­tle pop­u­la­tion like not tak­ing tur­tles out in the wild as pets, and not destroy­ing their nests.

We have to not behave like a tur­tle to help pro­tect the turtle!

Read more here: http://parcplace.org/news-a-events/year-of-the-turtle.html

Also the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion in Con­necti­cut is hav­ing an art con­test for kids.  You don’t even have to live in Con­necti­cut to enter the contest!

All chil­dren from kinder­garten through fifth grade are eli­gi­ble to enter an orig­i­nal draw­ing, paint­ing, or sketch of a tur­tle native to Connecticut.

• Entries will be judged in three cat­e­gories: K-1st grade, 2nd-3rd grade, and 4th-5th grade.
• Prizes will be awarded in each cat­e­gory for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and hon­or­able mention.
• All entries will be dis­played at the Ses­sions Woods Con­ser­va­tion Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter, in Burling­ton, for Year of the Tur­tle Day, sched­uled for June 26, 2011, from 1:00–4:00 PM.
• Full details and entry infor­ma­tion are avail­able on the offi­cial entry form (PDF) or by call­ing the Wildlife Divi­sion at 860–675-8130 (Mon-Fri, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM).

More info here:

http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a=2723&q=473472&depNav_GID=1655

Hey Kids!

Learn about marine biol­ogy, coastal ecol­ogy, oceanog­ra­phy, con­ser­va­tion and more at BOAT CAMP in New­bury­port Mass­a­chu­setts this sum­mer, 2011.

BOAT CAMP’s week long pro­gram aboard the Erica Lee explores the coastal ecol­ogy of Ipswich Bay and the Gulf of Maine through a vari­ety of fun daily activ­i­ties, all of which are decided upon the day’s best weather pre­dic­tions and con­ducted accord­ing observed weather, tide and sea states. Above all else, we focus on keep­ing kids warm (or cool!), safe and happy, and we uti­lize both the Erica Lee and BOAT CAMP Inc.’s ocean edu­ca­tion cen­ter to make the best of New England’s change­able weather in order for kids to expe­ri­ence a fun, pos­i­tive boat-based sum­mer program.

They’ve got 3 spots avail­able for kids 9–12 for August  15 — 19.

http://www.boatcamp.org/programs/kids-9–12/

Just like being stuck with your pest of a brother or sis­ter, you can’t get away from water.  But you should be glad you can’t.  On both accounts.

You see water in a lake, or a stream, or river — you get the idea.  Humans, ani­mals and plants drink the water up.

What we don’t drink evap­o­rates.  Or it freezes.  Some of it melts.  It goes up to the clouds that hold water until they release the water and then water has returned. You might think to your­self, “Not as good as grape juice” … until you’re really thirsty and there’s a fresh glass of water nearby.  That stuff sit­ting in the glass?  It’s always leav­ing and com­ing back.  You might not think about it that way.

Sci­ence with Me explains,

Water can change state from liq­uid to vapour to ice at dif­fer­ent places on the water cycle. How­ever, the bal­ance (or amount) of water always stays the same. So the water in your glass is very, very, very old indeed! (but it still tastes good). If you think of a per­son who lived hun­dreds of years ago, well the water in your glass was on the Earth then too! Maybe they even drank the same water as you…ewwwww!!

Sure, it might take a long time for the water in Lake Char­gog­g­a­gog­gman­chaug­g­a­gog­gchaubuna­gunga­maugg to evap­o­rate, tran­spi­rate, con­den­sate, pre­cip­i­tate, hes­i­tate, stare at Nate.

And sure, it might be a long time before your brother, both­er­ing you with his pile of legos, can build a robot that will pour some­thing into a glass for you.  It might be some time later when your sis­ter, buzzing all the time at the game of Oper­a­tion, can safely per­form the Heim­lich maneu­ver on you because you drank too fast and started chok­ing.  Then it’s a good thing they didn’t go away.  Maybe it would help to con­sider your brother or sis­ter as a slow mov­ing ice­berg, a frozen body of water.  That’s not my sis­ter.  That’s just vapor.

We know that with­out bum­ble­bees fruit will not grow on the vine, corn will not grow on the cob, alfalfa won’t feed farm ani­mals, and cot­ton will not grow into under­pants fab­ric for cloth­ing, right?  Am I right?  Even though bees can sting us, they’re nec­es­sary, like it’s nec­es­sary to eat cab­bage when we would rather have…a fruit roll-up.

“Bees are like fly­ing dust mops,” says Jerry Bromen­shenk (Uni­ver­sity of Mon­tana, Mis­soula).  “Wher­ever they go, they pick up dust, air­borne chem­i­cals, and other sam­ples. If it’s out there, they’ll find it and bring it back.”

Researchers from the Uni­ver­sity of Mon­tana and San­dia Labs are train­ing bees to sniff out land mines, or explo­sives such as TNT, that are found in land mines.

They train the bees to think of candy bars some­thing sweet like honey while smelling explo­sives so that when they fly into a field that has land­mines, they will want to spend more time in the area, pick­ing up lots of the affected pollen and par­ti­cles as they go.

When the bees return to the hives built by San­dia Labs, researchers can detect whether or not there’s TNT in the hives with hand-held radar equip­ment that they can’t detect out in a ran­dom field.

This is very impor­tant, because if peo­ple can find the land­mines they can dis­able them, and get them safely out of the soil.  Poor farm­ers, and their chil­dren, will be able to use the land, not ruined by the poi­sons that explo­sives put in the soil, to grow food with­out blow­ing them­selves up.  It’s esti­mated that more than 10,000 kids die in fields that have land­mines every year.

What’s also excit­ing is how inex­pen­sive this solu­tion is because “…there are bee­keep­ers everywhere…and you wouldn’t need a million-dollar piece of equip­ment and exten­sive train­ing to use it.”

Read the full story at the San­dia web­site. Or even bet­ter: become an offi­cial bum­ble­bee observer for sci­en­tists!

I know where your drink­ing water comes from — do you?? Come inves­timi­gate the planet using sci­ence with Pro­fes­sor Blue.