Tulip
Garden Update: March 18, 2005
Today's Report Includes:
- This Week's Map and Data
- Sun and Earth and Seasonal Change
- Challenge Question #7
- Reminder: Your Prompt Reporting is Important for this Experiment
- Snowstorms and Tulips: Observations for Your Notebooks
- Focusing with O'Keeffe on the Details
- Critters
in the Garden: Revealing the Track Puzzle of CQ #6
This Week's Map and Data
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Sun and Earth and Seasonal Change
John Muir, famous conservationist, writer and founder of the Sierra Club has been credited for saying, "When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
Whether tracking spring through daylength recording, the emergence of a plant or the flight of a hummingbird we cannot deny the interrelated aspects of seasonal change. This week the first tulip garden emerged in Alaska, in Haines (59 N latitude). 4 days later the first rufous hummingbirds were sighted in Sitka and Ketchikan, AK(55-57 N). A quick look at the map reveals just how far north these events occurred. This far northern coastal region is experiencing spring change earlier than many of the garden sites further south.
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Snapshots
of the Pacific coast of North America. Tulips emerging in Haines,
AK and first sightings of the rufous hummingbird in Sitka and Ketchikan,
AK this week. |
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Does it make you wonder why? What would a scientist say about this?
Challenge Question #7:
"What statements can you make to explain why early reports of spring occur along the northern Pacific Northwest coast?"
(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.)
Reminder: Your Prompt Reporting is Important for this Experiment
In the International Tulip study, MANY students follow the wave of spring as it moves northward and measure its pace across the continent. As spring advances the pace quickens and data must be reported immediately for the best results. Waiting to report your data, or inaccurate reporting can cause confusion.
For example, Nina Cavalier, an engineer and teacher/parent of the Blue Ridge Homeschool Group along with her 1st Grade tulip gardener reported frustration mapping spring's arrival:
"We have a large map, with empty circles for planted tulips. I print out all of the planted, emerged, and bloomed lists from the email updates. As a garden in a given state emerges, he colors a circle in that state yellow, then, for bloomed, he colors a yellow circle red. We have recently found some states for which he has run out of planted tulips, yet more get reported as emerged.
"You can see this easily for Texas if you compare these maps. Texas has only 3 planted gardens on the final Fall map, yet 5 blooming gardens, and 3 more emerged gardens, on the most recent map.
"This discrepancy has provided for discussion with my son on importance of accurate data reporting, including how many other people depend on the accuracy of each individual report. We have also discussed the importance of timeliness of reporting. Every reporting period for the spring, we have found some "stragglers", people who reported emergence many weeks after the fact. (In the March 11 update, for example, the earliest emerged tulips reported were from Jan 13.) If many people do this, it makes it difficult to make predictions about what is going to emerge or bloom next."
Snowstorms and Tulips: Observations for Your Notebooks
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How
will snow affect these tulips? |
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How will cold temperatures and snow affect the emerging tulips? As the tulips grow and the sun heats up the Earth this spring watch your plants carefully.
- Will the cold temperatures kill the plants? How cold is it at their level?
- Do you see signs of damage from the snow and cold? What are they?
- Do the plants grow more slowly in cold than in warm weather? Can you measure?
- Will tulips still in the ground wait to emerge?
- Will the cold affect the bloom?
Keep your notes and observations in your Science Journal and see if you can answer these questions by the end of the school year.
Focusing with O'Keeffe on the Details
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Georgia O'Keeffe
was an artist finely attuned to the sights and sounds of the natural world.
In addition to looking closely and intimately at her subjects, she often
wrote of the things she heard around her: blowing wind, deep stillness,
rustling trees and animal sounds. She transferred these sounds into the
mood of her paintings using color and form.
Each year as spring advances, we are drawn to the wonder and beauty of
her work.
Use this art lesson to take a moment to focus on the beauty of springtime in the natural world around you.
Critters in the Garden: Revealing the Track Puzzle of CQ #6
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credit: MA Dept Fish
and Wildlife |
This month
Holly Cerullo had a visitor in her garden in MA. She photographed the
evidence and shared it with us. Did you identify them? Would they be interested
in eating the tulips?
Holly
revealed the tracks belong to an opossum! Opossums are North America's
only marsupial (female has a pouch) mammal.
You may know them for their famous posture: when frightened and unable to flee opossums may fall into an involuntary shock-like state, "playing 'possum". These slow-moving marsupials are omnivorous. Watch out! This means that your tulips could very likely become their dinner! An omnivore eats both plants and animals.
How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:
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 #7.
3. In the body of EACH message, give your answer to ONE of the questions
above.
The Next Tulip Garden Update Will Be Posted on March 25, 2005.
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