Tulip Garden Update: March 22, 2002 Today's Report Includes: Marching Across the Continent Long Term Interest- Dealing in Data Cryogenics and Cryology: Discussion of Challenge Question #7 Help! Tulips are Tasty! Discussion of Challenge Question #8 Bulbs: Nature's BioComputers: Try This! Bulb Quiz Challenge Question #9 First Garden Blooms Off-Continent! Challenge Question #10 Marching Across the Continent March temperatures this past week are back to normal as we see a surge in the number of tulip gardens poking up out of the earth. Since our last update 23 gardens reported emerged this week and we have 10 more blooming. Tulips Emerged Tulips Blooming Tulips with Love At the Litwin School in Chicopee, MA gardeners planned a garden with a special meaning. March 15th their bulbs started emerging. "In the fall we planted our memorial tulip garden in memory of all who lost their lives on 9/11. Our tulips have begun to emerge and we eagerly await all those red flowers that were planted in the shape of a heart." Blooming for the Equinox Students at Mcfadden Elementary in Murfreesboro, TN had hoped for equinox blooms! "We have been patiently waiting for our tulips to bloom. We were hoping that they would bloom by the first day of spring and they did. I checked on Saturday and there were no buds so I was very surprised to drive up this morning (0/19/02) and find 4 or 5 tulips already blooming. They are very beautiful." Experimenting with Tulip Varieties Vera Kilpatrick Elementary students in Texarkana, AR did some experimenting with tulip varieties this year. "The Red Emperor tulips are blooming (3/19/02) in our Outdoor Classroom. We planted some Golden Emperor tulips at the same time we planted out red ones. They started blooming last week - so the red ones were just a few days behind them. We also planted some hybrid tulips that just emerged last week. They are beginning to grow nicely. All of the plants look very healthy and are full of buds." Snow Blankets Emerging Tulips Third graders at Mast Way Elementary School in Lee, NH have a question. "Several tulips were spotted poking out of the ground on Monday after a few weeks of unusually warm weather. Today (3/21) our tulips are under six inches of snow which fell in honor of the first day of spring. We wonder how the blanket of snow will affect the emerging tulips?" Long Term Interest - Dealing in Data Virginia Living Museum in Newport News, Virginia has been dealing in data for 5 years how- tulip data, that is! Their Children's Learning Garden is an ongoing project teaching children about soil, plants, and all the care and benefits that come with tending gardens. Keeping track of your tulip dates (planting, emerging and blooming) from year to year is a wonderful way to compare each year's temperatures and weather against previous years. What a great way to start thinking about the complexities of our natural cycles. Cryogenics and Cryology: Discussion of Challenge Question #7 How is a glass jar of water like a plant cell? Put it into the freezer and you probably found out that the jar burst! Can you make the analogy to a plant cell when it experiences freezing temperatures? What is happening here? water expands when it freezes rigid cell walls burst when water inside the cell freezes and expands pushing against the rigid walls damaged cell walls lose their structure and the leaf tissue becomes limp and watery cells that have frozen leak their liquid and die Your lettuce leaf experiment shows pretty vividly how freezing temperatures can damage cell walls enough to cause them to burst and leak enough to kill the leaf. Help! Tulips are Tasty! Discussion of Challenge Question #8 Challenge Question #8 asked you to come up with some solutions for keeping the critters from munching on your tasty tulips. Students at Eastover Academy in Charlotte, NC took action in their garden to animals from eating their tulip bulbs. And, it worked! Here is what they reported: "One bloom today in our garden!! We have about 9 others ready to burst into bloom. That should happen this weekend. The class was so excited. We put human hair in the garden to try to keep the "rodents" from digging up and eating our bulbs. It worked!" Bulbs: Nature's BioComputers We live in an age of complex microcomputer technology that allows us to store and process huge amounts of knowledge and information in tiny amounts of space. But we haven't yet reached the level of a bulb to store life in a neat little package, safe from cold and drought. Locked in its protective and nourishing fleshy scales, a true bulb is a tiny life form- complete with roots, stems, leaves and flowers that waits through long, cold weather to burst forth into the sunlight of spring. This little nature-designed bulb package can continue to come alive year after year, completing the cycle of growth and dormancy many times over. Their unique structure allows them to store food that carries them over during cold or dry weather conditions until their aboveground growth begins again. What is being stored? Try This! Bulb Quiz What are the different kinds of flowering bulbs? How are they different, and similar? What is a "geophyte?" We eat a lot of them! Learn about them and then take a quiz. Bulbs: Nature's BioComputers Have you eaten the stored energy a plant was saving for next year's growth? Don't worry. Many geophytes were grown just for you! Challenge Question #9: "Name any bulb, corm, rhizome/tuber, tuberous root, or hypocotyl you have eaten lately. How much stored energy did it contain? (Give your answer in calories.)" (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) First Garden Blooms Off-Continent! Aminah, Emma, Yuki, Mizuki and all the Croydon gardeners Croham Hurst School,"the Limes" reported in from Croydon, UK (England) to share their blooming news and enclosed a picture of their gardeners! "We are pleased to report that some of our tulips have bloomed: Aminah's on the 4th March, Emma's on the 13th March. Yuki's and Mizuki's are, too!" Take a look at this week's map and find the garden in Croydon, UK. The latitude, at 51.20N is the highest of all the Journey North gardens now blooming. Does this seem odd? Put on your thinking caps and see if you can answer this: Challenge Question #10: "What factors might be affecting the climate in the garden at Croyden that would cause it to bloom before the gardens in North America at the same latitude (51.20N)?" (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) How to Respond to Today's Challenge Question IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message. 1. Address an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-tulip@learner.org 2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge Question #9 (or #10) 3. In the body of the message, answer ONE of the questions above. The Next Tulip Garden Update Will be Posted on April 5, 2002. Copyright 2002 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form