Learning Log – May 2016

Most of the learning I logged in May was experiential or in conversations with other people. I went to a lecture on wildflowers – the closest I came to a class. The speaker included a segment on buzz pollination, reinforcing what I already knew about it from my son-in-law about the topic. He also pointed out that the jack-in-the-pulpit flowers look the same from the outside but the male and female flowers are quite different inside – but one has to cut away the outer part of the flower to see the structures. Not something I would do!

One area of experiential learning in May was picking strawberries. Years ago when I picked strawberries, I did so on my knees so I was pleasantly surprised that the mounds of my CSA’s strawberry patch made it easier to just bend over to gather the fruit. I’m still enjoying the strawberries I picked.

The other big experience of the month was using the scanner – primarily for old slides, pictures and Zentangle tiles. I learned to use a can of compressed air to clean the dust off periodically and how to scan multiple items at a time (into separate images). I also raised the scanner on a stand so that I didn’t have to bend over slightly each time I loaded it.

There were a lot of factoids I picked up in conversations with other naturalists before field trip hikes:

• Carolina wrens build multiple nests and then the female chooses one (from a birder),
• Earthworms come to the surface during rains not because they are drowning but because they are migrating (from another naturalist that had been reading about it),
• How the ‘points’ of antlers are counted (from a chaperone of a hiking group),
• Inexpensive wire mesh kitchen strainers work great to capture macro-invertebrates in rivers and streams (from a leader of a field trip to the Patapsco River).

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2016

May was the height of the spring school field trip season and three was something to celebrate about all of them –

The preschoolers that earned to recognize red winged blackbirds both by sight and sound

Being remembered by a 2nd grader as his hike leader from last fall (and the hike that followed),

Getting through a very wet field trip with 3rd graders – hiking with umbrellas through the meadow,

The 5th graders on the first Bioblitz day finding a toad near the pool in a formal garden – on their sunny day,

The 5th graders on the second Bioblitz day documenting beetles and trees and slugs and flowers – in the rain making the most of their teams of two or three: one holding the umbrella and the other entering the data into iNaturalist…..and then having their picnic brown bag lunch under the chandeliers in the tent that usually hosts weddings,

And the group of middle schoolers that removed a big pile of invasive plants…..before the rain started!

The trip to Conowingo was worth celebrating. I enjoyed it while I was there and then even more once I looked at my pictures! It helped that we managed to go on a sunny day.

A wildflower talk was worth celebrating for the topic and the ‘new to me’ tidbits sprinkled through the lecture.

I am celebrating a good start to my project to digitize our slides. There are some hidden treasures there!

Another project – cleaning out stuff – is also proceeding well. In this early phase, one of the measurements is how much (paper) is going in the recycle directly or being shredded (and then recycled.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 9, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Surgery, Stem Cells Treat Cataracts – Removing a cataract damaged lens but leaving the individuals lens epithelial stem cells (conventional cataract surgery removes them) allows the lens to regenerate. Initial results are good; if sustained this may be the new ‘conventional’ treatment for cataracts.

Man-made Earthquakes are on the rise, but they don’t have to be and As US Oil Production Increases, More Americans at Risk of Man-Made Quakes – Two articles about man-made earthquakes. The second one includes a map. Central Oklahoma has a risk of a damaging quake this year as high as the risk in California! Are the building codes in Oklahoma taking earthquakes into account? If they do, it is probably a recent update since earthquakes were not common in the state until recently.

Beware of Food Fraud – Olive oil is at the top of the ‘food fraud’ list evidently.

Streamer – USGS site that traces steams/rivers upstream and downstream. I you even wondered where the river near you comes from or goes --- this is an easy site to use. It map based so it is a simply as zooming to the river of interest and selecting upstream or downstream highlighting.

A Treasury of Prairie Wildflowers – This is a great time of year to get out and look for wildflowers no matter where you live. Even dandelions have their own charm (particularly if viewed with a magnifier).

6 Primary Transformative Paradigms for the Auto Industry – You’ve probably read about most of these in some form. I like collections like this that help me develop a framework for areas of technology (in this case ‘cars’).

Restoring the American Chestnut – Evidently there are blight resistant cultivars of American Chestnut but it is challenging to grow the 100s of seedlings for field trials and then restoration planting. This article is about experiments to optimize root production in the seedlings.

7 Citizen Science Projects for Bird Lovers – Another motivation to get outdoors this spring!

CDC expands range of Zika mosquito into parts of Northeast and Zika Attacked a Baby’s Brain as Doctors Watched – Scary stuff. I am already gearing up to walk around the yard and make sure we don’t have any standing water (and empty and refresh bird baths every other day). This is going to be a tough battle to keep the virus from spreading (and if it does keeping the mosquitos that carry it from continuing to spread it).

Successful dying: Researchers define the elements of a ‘good death’ – The themes culled from 32 studies were: preferences for a specific dying process, pain-free status, religiosity/spirituality, emotional well-being, life completion, treatment preferences, dignity, family, quality of life, relationship with the health care provider and "other." The bottom line is to ‘ask the patient.’ That seems to be common sense but how often is it actually asked by medical professionals and family member?