Tulip Garden Update: April 29, 2005

Today's Report Includes:

• This Week's Map
• Finding Meaning Season after Season
• Springtime in Alaska
• Dog Tooth Violet: What's in a Name?
• Challenge Question #10
• Ephemeral Spring Beauties
• Creative Writers Take Notebooks to Field – CQ #9
• Teacher Tips: Teaching Inquiry - Schoolwide
• Special Tulip Prices for Journey North Gardeners
• Year-End Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!

• Tulips Emerged
• Tulips Bloomed

Today's tulip garden map: 04/29/05	Temperature departure from average for week of April 17-23, 2005	One year ago: tulip garden map 04/30/04

Reminder- Important Definitions
Just a quick reminder to help you in determining when to report your tulip data:

Emerging	Blooming
The first sign of the tulip leaves breaking the ground. (Photo: Jo Leland)	The first time the flower opens and you can see the pistils and stamens inside.
No matter how many tulips you plant, report the FIRST tulip to emerge and bloom.

Crested Butte Community School students. Credit K. Allen

Participating in the Journey North tulip study for more than one season allows you to know more about your special climate. This valuable information can be helpful for predicting what might happen and understanding why. Scientists find it useful to repeat their experiments many times. Each time they keep many notes about their observations. Why do you think this would be important? Often experiments are repeated over many months or years so a large amount of data can be collected and analyzed.

Dig into the 5 years’ data from one special garden. Use your math skills to calculate mean, range, minimum, and maximum days from emerge to bloom in the garden. Then predict when bloom will occur in 2005!

• Tulip Data Season after Season

"Saw a robin last Tuesday (April 12). I do a 25 mile bicycle commute from my house on the Anchorage Hillside down along a bird sanctuary, and right in along the coastal bluffs above Cook Inlet I come across what is apparently some pretty prime robin habitat. I say apparently, because a big, fat, presumably male robin comes and claims the same tall cottonwood every year right about this time.
Lots of activity this week, too: bald eagles playing in the rising air currents reflecting off the lake that gives our school its name; geese everywhere; swans coming by in pairs; gulls making their appearances at the same time the ravens mysteriously disappear for the summer. The bears are already starting to browse garbage cans up in my Hillside neck of the woods along 500,000 acre Chugach State Park; Certainly all signs of spring. Though we're under a heavy snow warning right now the signs of spring are everywhere. Any white stuff that falls will not last a week. Further north at my cabin the snow is dropping by the foot. Now it's probably only six feet to dirt."

Dog Tooth Violet
(Erythronium sp.)

Just as the ground thaws and the first scent of spring is in the air, take a walk through the woodlands and creek beds. Although all around might look brown and dead looking, a closer look and you might find a lovely lily-like flower nodding above two narrow, mottled, light-green leaves. Where you find one, look carefully for others because they often cluster in one area.

The tulip and the Dogtooth Violet share genetics! That is a scientist's way of saying they are like cousins. They're both classified in the family "Liliaceae." All of the cousins - or species - in the Liliaceae have large bulbs, which animals love to eat. The bulbs were actually once a source of food for Native Americans.

How many characteristics can you see?

Characteristics of plants in the Liliaceae (pronounced li-LE-A-CEE-e):

• six parted perianth generally (the perianth is the petals and sepals)
• six stamens, one pistil
• stigma generally three-lobed, or three separate stigmas on a three-branched style
• fruit generally three-chambered pods or berries

Go take a look at your tulip flowers and answer this:

Challenge Question #10:
"How many characteristics of the family Liliaceae can you identify when you examine your tulip flowers?"

(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.)

Some wild signs that spring has arrived.

Try This!
Can you pronounce, "ephemeral"? Look up the word in your dictionary and find the definition. Use it in a sentence. Go home and try it out on your family and friends!

Student learns measuring skills

Learn more about a teacher from Tennessee whose excellence in teaching brought online learning and plant inquiry into her school through the Journey North tulip study. Dorothy Davis submitted a proposal for a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant to provide funds for a schoolwide tulip investigation.

Dorothy writes, “The idea was to create two tulip gardens on school grounds: a Journey North garden in which students would monitor tulips’ growth and report data to the Journey North website and an “Experimental” garden in which students could explore their own “what if? …” questions related to tulips. In addition, during the winter, students at each grade level would conduct age-appropriate investigations on potted tulips they “forced” indoors using grow lights. Through these experiences, all of the students would practice science inquiry, develop understandings of what is necessary for plants to grow, and begin to make connections about temperature, light, and plant growth.”

Learn more about Tulip Inquiry and Tracking Through the Tulips:

• Teacher Tip

When you order your Fall tulips, be sure and identify yourself as a Journey North Tulip Study teacher to receive the 15% discount!

(Note: Journey North does not receive proceeds from sales. This service is provided to simplify teacher-participation.)

1. Address an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-tulip@learner.org
2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge Question #10.
3. In the body your message, answer the question above.

The Next Tulip Garden Update Will Be Posted on May 6, 2005.

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