Oklahoma Science Adventure 2009 Blog
Day One
The Adventure begins! We have safely arrived in Claremore! It has been a lot of fun getting to know each other. This evening we started our science adventure by investigating a “Coolosaurus” and using out observation skills to explore the Rogers County Conservation District with Robert Gibbs. http://www.rogerscountyconservationdistrict.org/ We also had a great campfire full of songs, skits and a LOT of laughing!
Adam: Mom I have had some fun. I am getting to know people.
Al S.: Today we had a ropes course. That was up to about lunch. After that we went into the ponds and explored for tadpoles, fish, etc. It was muddy and hot so we drank plenty of water. In pond #3 I found a pretty big fish. We then started a project to come up with a question and a hypothesis. Swimming, observing, and blogging were the rest of the time.
Alex: so today i had a lot of fun. i dragged myself out of bed (pardon my i’s, but i don’t feel this to be that formal), brushed my teeth and in no time was on the ropes thingy (in which no ropes were acually employed), playing a bunch of different and challenging games. one, which i had played with my six grade class, was were we had to get in order of our birth month without talking, and welll balancing on a log, which we could not fall off of or we’d have to start over. we did not succeed as my class did in sixth grade, although we did succeed after several attempts on our islands game.we had to use three uneaqually long planks to cross from one wooden crate to the next, there being 3 crates. one large, one medium, and one small. the only time the boards actually fit across was from the medium to the small, and if any one or any board toched the ground at any point, the game would start over. that was a riot. richard (little brother) you better not be sleeping in my bed without permission, but i can’t really do much about it, much less get mad. a’right, love you (mom, dad, Richard) seeya when i get back.
Amber: I am having so much fun. This is awesome. I met a new best friend. Her name is erica. She is my room mate. We get along. I saw really cool fish. we played a really weird and confusing game called pika pika.
Erica: This trip is totally awesome!!!!!! The past two days have been sooo fun! The first day we got stuck in traffic…..lol but me got here in Claremore at about 6:30pm and we ate pizza from mazios and then we unpacked some and then headed off to the aqua lab here at RSU. We did a progect on the animal Coolosaurus and tried to keep it cool outside because thats the type of weather it likes. Then we went on a night hike and used our 5 senses to imagine what the wetland looked like because we hadn’t seen it yet. Then this morning we went on a ropes course and had to do teamwork and go through alot of different obsticles like the tiki shuffel where we had to move around on a log and get in a specific order then there was the balance beams and we all had 2 spotters and one person walked on an inch and a half board!!! Then we had 2 do one called islands and we all had 2 stand on a small platform and move boards2 get to 2 other platforms that were each smaller than the others. And then this afternoon we got muddy!!!! We went in 4 different ponds and scooped up the contents and saw what kind of life lives there. Now we are going to start an experiment 2maro and mine and my roomate, (Amber) our project is over could the fish presence efffect the tadpole population. Well i am making alot of friends on this trip and i cant wait for more!! I will update soon!!! Bye! p.s. my new nickname is buttons!!!! Lol
Ernesto V.: Today is day two, after riding in a van for two and a half hours, and listening to many weird, no not weird, special sing along songs we finally got here, well yesterday. My favorite part of the trip so far was eating my first smour, or smore, or however you spell it,even though the special moment was destroyed by a moth, and oh yeah and thanks to the people that made this possible to Holli, Jas or Jaz, John, April, Holli again, and Roger, he has a really cool beard. From Roger State University.
Katelin: These past 2 days were really really fun.Today we went to four ponds. They were all very exciting. my favorite pond was the fourth pond because of all of the tadpoles and fish. It was really fun when we got into the mud. Every body kept loosing their shoes and getting stuck in the mud.Then we went back to the lab and looked at all of the fish that we caught and also the insects. IT IS REALLY FUN!!!!!!!
Kris: Hey!Kris here @ Roger State University ending day 2!Day 2 was as fun as day1.Met a lot of interesting people(including my roomate,Ramon)Did lots of neat activities like board walking,wading in wetlands in search of aquatic creatures,jump rope,and night hikes.The wildlife was NOT hard to find.We got to walk through a nature reserve ,too.getting ready to sign off,thank forba the best wishes.I send them right back 2 ya!Look frwrd 2 seeing you on the 18th!:)
Mariah: Okay I have no idea were to start on the things we have done J but we are all getting along and and things are vary interesting we are on a tight schedule which means we are busy. well it is time for bed so i need to log off ttyl.
Ramon G.: Hello mom and dad i had a great time yesterday and today.Yesterday we got cool cameras and water jugs oh and journal when we got to Tulsa i took pictures of that big bottle.When we got to Claremore i took a picture of Choplerigde, ribcrib and a bounch of other things.I will tell you guys about today tomorrow.Love you guys bye !!
Shannon: The past two days we have had so much fun! There was a campfire and smores. Then we did skits, songs and and a story. We went on a night hike and saw a hungry bat, many different fireflys and lots of nature sounds. There were lots of neat animals in the aqauriums inside the aqua lab. There were tarantulas, cockroaches, frogs, tadpoles, snakes and turtles. Plus crayfish, snails and bugs. We got to go scavenging through ponds to find tadpoles, bugs, fish and anything else we found. Then we studied it under microscopes and had a little help identifying things from April, John and Robert. This is a ton of fun and I don’t want it to be over but I know it will have to end sometime.Luckily it’s only been two days. We went swimming in the pool and had lots of fun getting to know eachother, especially ont the ride up here.I’m having a lot of fun but at the same time I can’t wait to be back at home.
Shreya: On our way to Claremore, we really got to know each other. I met Mariah, Shannon, Chris, Ernesto, Ramone and Jess. So…yesterday, we ate Mazzio’s pizza for dinner. We were about 40 minutes after I thoughtt we would beto four…traffic! We waved at everyone in the traffic. After dinner yesterday, we did an experiment, had a campfire, roasted marshmallows, and went on a night hike. We woke up this morning, and went to the Hilltop Challenge. We did all the low elements. We really got to know which of us were leaders. And we played a catchy game named pika pika tonga tonga..I bet I’ll be saying that in my sleep. After lunch, We went to the ponds and searched for life in there for a few hours. I was standing in water past my waist. We went to four different ponds. We washed off, ate dinner (burgers and macaroni and cheese). Swam, and looked at bugs.
Day Two
We have had a great day here in Claremore, Oklahoma! These 12 students are working hard and having a wonderful time. This morning we woke up about 7 a.m., got ready in our dorm rooms and walked over to the cafeteria for some tasty breakfast burritos. 🙂 Yummy! Next we headed to the Ropes Course to meet T (our facilitator). She led us through some activities that tested our physical and mental abilities. We learned to work as a team, like scientists must do in their careers. They (and we) have to communicate, trust and think enable to “do science.” After a lunch of sandwiches and some time to cool down from the hot Oklahoma weather we met April and John. They are graduate student scientists from OU. April studies amphibians and John studies insects. They told us about what they study, specifically and then we took another look at the Reserve site. This time in the day light. There are four water areas we observed and collected samples from. After two hours of collecting in the water, getting dirty, sweaty, slimy and a little smelly 🙂 we started headed inside the Aqua Lab to see what we found. We looked at the similarities and differences in diversity of each site. Then we partnered up and started working on out hypothesis for Tuesday. After sometime thinking and thinking and talking and thinking we shared our ideas. Then it was time for dinner! Hamburgers and Mac and Cheese. We are eating well! This evening we swam in the pool here at the dorms. Then back to the Reserve to look for insects at night. John set up a white sheet with a few different types of lights. We saw TONS of really interesting insects. Tuesday is going to be another exciting day. Check back to find out what we did!
Adam: Hi mom I have been having some fun. Today we had to have a question it is I think bigger fish will live in the shaded area and the vegetation my hypothesis is bigger fish will be in shaded vegetation but it turned out to be wrong my point is that why do bigger fish not inhabit the vegetation. Tomorrow we are going canoeing.
Al S.: Today we proved our hypothesis to see if our question was true, where are bigger fish found? We prove our hypothesis to be incorrect after catching more than 160 fish. Our hypothesis was that bigger fish hid in deep water in the shade with a descent food supply. We then had lunch and went swimming. We came back to the aqua lab to give our presentations. I had been covered in feet of mud after searching the ponds, so my socks are black! We will be heading to observe astronomy later on, so goodbye!
Alex: Hi mom, dad, brother who is Richard. i’, having a great time. i assume that Richard P. is calling continuously, trying to figure out where i am. anyway, we had to do an expeirement from one of our observations using the scientific method, which turned out quite different than i expected. Ernesto (my partner and roommate) and i were wondering if pond size affects fish growth. we figured that since larger animals require more oxygen, they would need a larger supply. Bigger Pond =bigger fish. there were 3 ponds we tested, small med. and large. we used a siene (giant net) to do four scoops of each pond, measured 20 fish we caught, and averaged the size in cm. our results completely contradicted our hypothesis, with the large pond having small fish and vice versa with the med. pond there in the middle. so that’s how it went. Oh, and Richard, there’s someone here named Chober.
Amber: My roomemate and i tested our quistion in 2 different ponds. The fishless pond and big pond .we got knee deep and sampled 3 places of the ponds.5 minutes each.we had 36 tadpoles in the fishless pond and 0 fish. We had 5 fish and 0 tadpoles in the big pond.we got really muddy and wet.In the end we had to give a presantation.We tested our hypothesis to be true.Totaly awesome.Yay its true!!!!!! 🙂 😉
Erica: My roomate and i had our experiment today and our question was, “What could influence the high diversity in the fishless pond.” Our thinking on why was because the fish in the big pond could be eating them and so since there were no fish in the fishless pond the tadpoles were flourishing. We tested our hypothesis by going to each the big pond and the fishless pond and chose three places in each one and sampling for five minutes each and inbetween sampling counting what we caught so far. At the fishless pond we ended up with 36 tadpoles and no fish and in the big pond we caught 3 tadpoles and 5 fish. So there were more tadpoles where there were no fish…..So our hypothesis proved correct! Yay!! 🙂 lol well thats all for now so bye!
Ernesto V.: Hi again, today we ate food and we did stuff, thats what I would say if I’d stayed home and would just be watching weird rerunsof old shows like, McGuiver or Matlock. Today we went into a conservation site the same as Yesterday and we finish a Research Project it was pretty cool we dived in ponds to catch some fishes, the research project uses the Scientific Method, so we had to come up with a Question, Hypothesis, Conclusion, and other things. My group question was “Do fish size varie through the different size ponds” and we thought larger pongs would have larger fish, but I was proven wrong. We ate Tacos today, yeah. And waffles too. Yeah…
Katelin: Today we went and tested our experiment. I was working with Shannon.Our question was where do most tadpoles live? In cool deep water or hot shallow water. Our hypothisis was that tadpoles live in deep cool water. Our hypothisis was wrong we found that the temperature of the water did not matter unless it wwas reallly cold for them. We found that tadpoles live in vegetated areas and in the mud. They use the vegetated area to hide and to eat algie. They use the mud to cool off and to hide also. we found more tadpoles at the big pond. It was really fun to go looking for fish and tadpoles in a very muddy lake.
Mariah: Today we have been working on our experiment. Just so you know mom it was messy : ) Our question about the experiment was – Dose the temperature of the pond effect the amount of fish we catch? Our conclusion was that the temp didn’t realy efect how many their were, but more ware the plants are. well time is out got to go.
Kris: waded in watr in serch of tadpoles 4 a project(found around 40!)hypothesis=they’ll go where there is food results=mostly correct,I was searching in barren areas so I shoud’ve found lessthan my partner but I was where there was plant life under water so that was a loophole G2G.
Ramon G.: Hi mom hi dad.Yesterday i had a great time we went to the ropescourse and played islands, balance beam,hey were great games.Then we went to the agua lab and we went to some ponds and got to go in them and get dirty for a long time.today we woke up and had bacon and waffles for breakfast. and after that we did our projects.My partner was Kris we got into the ponds again and now we are going to go back to the agua lab and do Astronomy.I Love you guys very much bye!!
Shannon: I did an awesome experiment with katelin. We had a question, hypothesis and conclusion. Our question was “where do most tadpoles live?” Our hypothesis was that tadpoles live in cooler water with plants. And our conclusion was that tadpoles don’t live in cool water They live in 85 to 90 degree water. I don’t think that the tempature of the water really matters that much. If I could do it again I would change my hypothesis to tadpoles live in water with vegetation. I would keep my question the same. I think that the mud helps keep the tadpoles cool when they hide in it. The plants would also help them hide and provide food. We got to search for tadpoles in the ponds. It was a lot of fun. We found about 20 tadpoles total. I’m really having a lot of fun and can’t wait to go canoeing tomorrow! Goodbye!
Day Three
Terrific Tuesday! This is has been a terrific Tuesday! We started off with a big breakfast then off to the reserve to test our hypothesis with some research. We started off by thinking about what equipment we would need and EXACTLY how we were going to conduct the sampling… was it the big pond or the fishless pond? Should we go in 5 steps? Your five steps or mine? Should we use a meter stick to measure the depth or our knees? After some details were decided we headed out into the Oklahoma summer morning and started to sample. After about three hours of sampling, LOTS of water and some great finds we cleaned off and went back into the air conditioning for lunch. After lunch we took a look at what other groups found and worked with our partner to start forming our conclusions. Then off to the pool for some much deserved relaxation! Swimming was really fun and cooled us off. 🙂 We went back to the reserve to finish our conclusions, make some graphs using excel on the computers and think about how we would like to continue the research if we had more time. Each group presented their project and provided discussion points about further research. The whole group had lots of questions and suggestions for further research. It was a wonderful discussion. If you are coming the presentations on Saturday I am sure your will see some of this work. 🙂 After dinner we were back on the reserve working with the Tulsa Astronomy Club. http://www.astrotulsa.com/ We had a great time talking and working with telescopes. We even named a new telescope of Office Boston (from RSU)! We have had an amazing time here at RSU and the Rogers County Conservation District. We could not have learned so much without Robert Gibbs, April Fink, John White, The Tulsa Astronomy Club, Offier Boston and the generous funding from the Whitten-Newman Foundation! We are not sleeping in our beds, dreaming of fish, tadpoles, insects, stars, frogs and our canoe trip tomorrow! We still have 5 more days of science to go!!
Day Four
Wonderful Wet Wednesday! Today has been wet and wild! We started our day in Claremore thinking about how and why people track animals before the started our journey to Tahlequah, Ok to start our tracking adventure. We arrived and met Dr. Nick Czaplewski, associate staff curator in vertebrate paleontology at the Museum. He is also a great animal tracker. This first part of the scientific method is observation. So we headed down the river observing the habitat for animal signs. We found tracks, scat and signs of feeding for a couple different species. Along the way we swam, talked, and enjoyed the beautiful river. We also used our teamwork skills as the river twisted and turned us around! We got stuck on a few trees and on the shore a couple times. 🙂 We did a great job communicating and helping each other. After about 4 hours we finished our trip and wanted to go again! It was so much fun and a wonderful way to look at the diversity of wildlife in Oklahoma. Tonight we are using our bodies to imitate how animals move and see how they make the tracks we saw on the river. It is really fun seeing everyone act like an animal. 🙂 Thursday we start or paleontology research! Check back for more fun!
Day Five
Thrilling Thursday. What a day! We started the day in Tahlequah, Oklahoma and have ended in Enid, Oklahoma. We spent our 3 hour drive singing, laughing, talking, napping and have WAY too much fun in a van 🙂 We met Bill May and Joe Baalke, our paleontologists from the Museum in Perry, Oklahoma to start our field research on paleontology. The sites are in the Permian time period. That means there are no dinosaurs. We found fossils of fish, ancient amphibians, ancient reptiles. It was really interesting to see the fossils out in the areas and look for them ourselves. We even get to take a few home! Our second site was our research site called Billings 1. This site has trace fossils, tracks of the ancient animals that were swimming in the area a LOOOOONG time ago. (Good thing we know a little about tracking from our river trip:) We observed the site and thought about questions and hypothesis for our research tomorrow. After dinner Bill and Joe played a great game of Paleo Jeopardy with us. This helped us to understand the area of our research site a little better. We have decide on our hypothesis as a group tonight and can’t wait to get out there in the morning to see what we can find out. Now we are off for a quick swim before it is time for bed! Then off to the museum tomorrow!
Adam: Hey mom we went to the Illinois River to canoe some people got stuck on the rocks and we went tracking for animal prints I really liked canoeing the fun part was about rapids there was a lot of obstacles.
Al S.: Yesterday we went canoeing. We are were also tracking animals by observing the tracks they leave behind. I actually lost my paddle but Chris got it for me. We found what looked like raccoon tracks and scat. We were hoping to find a slide of mud from an otter, thats what Dr. Nick wanted to see. I really liked the canoeing, though I was not the best. I had never been canoeing so I had to have someone who had. We also swam in the Illinois River, it was always almost shallow. We then went back to the hotel and had help with tracking human prints from Nick. We learned that the length, width, and depth can help a lot when in law enforcement. We went 6 miles for about 4 hours. After that we all went to bed. So that is pretty much it beside the van ride, see you soon!
Alex: Hallo, mom, dad, brother who is Richard, yesterday we went canoeing on the Illinois river, which was surprisingly easy. I dropped my paddle once,but grabbed it instantly. we would stop at certain places and look for animal tracks, with the help of doctor Nick scheschsheshshecluski (no clue how to spell it). we got two people to a boat, and i got to sit in the front most of the time. it was awsome. Hey Richard, hope you’re enjoying the Chober joke.
Erica: We had so much fun canooing! I expecially had alot of fun tracking…so the canooing and tracking was a good experience and i would like to do it again. So we are about to go swimming so i will blog again later….BYE!!! 🙂
Amber: Yesterday we went canoeing.while we were canoeing we went tracking with Nick.a tracking scienetist. it was really fun. Alot of us got stuck in fast water currents. Tt was about 6 miles so it took us 4 & 1/2 hours.the river was the Illonoise River.Today we went with Bill and Joe.
Ernesto V.: Today actually I have to blog about yesterday and today. Yesterday we went canoeing with Dr. Nick on the Illinois River somewhere, I’m not really sure where, but it was really cool and it wasn’t like canoeing with your third grade class, where there’s a rubber duck and fake trees, but an actual canoeing, with rapids and 80 trees in your way. Today was the day I was exited more the most, we went fossil hunting, we went to fossil stes in Perry and Enid, we went to sites from the Permian Era, and we mostly found fish bones scales and lungfish holes, oh yeah we also had dinner at Chilli’s, awesome.
Katelin: We went canoeing yesterday to go look for tracks. I think we found river otter tracks and racoon tracks. We also found berries maybe from a otter. I learned a lot yesterday. I found out some people find animal scat and they pick it up and smell it. It was very interesting. Canoeing was really fun because this was my first time doing this so it was really hard but i was with Holli and Ramon and they have more experience than I do. My favorite part was when we got to stop and swim around in the Illinios river. While we were conoeing we saw big giant cat fish and bass. I am actually going to try and convince my mom into taking us conoeing. I think it will be really fun to go with family.
Kris: This is my canoeing/tracking experience. After learning the proper way to use the paddles,we started canoeing on the Illinois River. The tracker with us was Dr. Nick. After we had gotten the hang of steering,we started to really look for spots where ani mals would leave tracks (aka muddy spots in the shade with a food source). Eventually we did find such spots. When we did,we’d park our canoes and Nick would tell us what type of animal the tracks most likely came from,why the animal chose this spot,and what would be other good spots to look for. There were rapids that we had to brave and friends we sometimes had to help out,but that’s what makes this experience real and that,s why this has been a gr8 expience thus far.
Mariah: We have been canoeing in the Illinois River. It was 6 miles long! but it went by so fast my partner lost his paddle when we hit a big bump but we found it and on the edge of the water we studied the rocks. today we have been into paleontology it is an amazing experience.
Ramon G.: Hi Jacob hi mom and hi dad.I had a great time yesterday we went canoeing and tracking. We ether found otter or beaver tracks on the banks of the Illinios river. When we canoeing some of us got stuck and al lost his paddle in the current it was a week current. we had to get out to help some people. One person got stuck in a tree log and other people got them out so ya we traveled 6 miles down river which was very fun!we got to let the current pull us a little. We sleeped at a Holiday Inn which was very comfy. I love you guys very much!!! BYE P.S.Tell everyone I said hi even granpa Hammon.
Shannon: Yesterday we went down the South Illinois River; in a canoe! It was so much fuun! Every once and a while we would pull over to the side a nd look at some tracks. We found a stick that a beaver had chewed on and some large dog tracks. we saw scat that may have come from a raccoon, river otter or beaver. Then we saw some more prints of a racoon or opossum. Some berries that were scattered on the ground hepled prove that the prints belonged to a raccoon or opossum. A hole that we saw looked like an animal had been digging there. Today we went looking for fossils at two different sites. It was cool because we walked through a field with cows and they started to do something like a stampede! I was scared at first but I was reassured by Holly that they wouldn’t hurt us. They didn’t! I found a fish’s tooth and Mariah found a shark’s tooth. Lots of people found fish scales and Lungfish burrows. it was so much fun and tomorrow we will go look at a site again with a lot of prehistoric animal tracks. I hope the last few days don’t go by quickly! Goodnight!
Shreya: So, as you probably know, we went canoeing yesterday 🙂 We also did a bit of tracking with Nick. We learned to canoe and it was pretty fun :). We almost tipped our canoe over on rapids going over a big log. We canoed for 6 miles in the S. Illinios river. Nick taught us how to track aniimal footprints and we found a few along the river. He showed us really cool stuff on how diff. animals walk. Today, we drove from Talequah and came to Orlando and found a bunch of fossils there. There was a black widow spider sort of near me, and Jes told me to get down (thanks Jes!!!). It was very fun. I found a lot of fish scales AND bones. We found a lot of lungfish burrows too. We went to a different site about 20 miles from each other. The second was near Perry. It was dullamite sandstone with imprints of prehistoric reptiles and amphibians. We are now about to go swimming (yay)!!! But, I LOVED canoeing!!!
Day Six
Fantastic Friday. What a day! It has been a great Friday. We have been working on our research at a Permian fossil track site all morning. It turned out to be a cool morning. We measured, sketched, wrote in our journals, made molds of the tracks and learned a lot. 🙂 After our research we headed back to the Museum for lunch. Then up to the paleontology preparation lad to see what happens to the fossils after they are come to the Museum. It was really cool! This afternoon we have been working hard on our presentation for tomorrow. We are now watching “A Night At The Museum” them we are going to spend out night in the Museum. We will see you at 11:30 a.m. for lunch then the Closing Ceremony at Noon. 🙂
Adam: Hey mom you coming tomorrow we did paleontology today we got to make plaster cast today we looked at a limestone rock and see footprints and ripples.
Al S.: Since yesterday, we have been working on paleontology! For those of you who don’t know it’s the study of fossils. We went to Site North Orlando and collected fossils and Lungfish burrows. We had to be cautioned about Black widows, Scorpions, and snakes. We then went to Billings site 1 and looked for tracks on a 57 foot long limestone from the Permian age! It used to be underwater. We tried to make a hypothesis on how many species had been in our own individual area. Mine had around three to four different species. See you all tomorrow!
Ernesto V.: Today we got back to the museum, but before that we went back to the fossil site Billings Site 1, the site with all the Permian fossil tracks, we finished our field project, in our field project we chose a 14″ x 17″ plot of limestone and we checked for tracks. When we did find any tracks, they were everywhere, we had to see what kind they were and how many we could find and also walking patterns. After that we had to use the Scientific Method to answer questions we made yesterday and today we finished it, its more confusing than it sounds.
Day Seven
It has been a great Oklahoma Science Adventure! We woke up in the Museum Ancient Life Gallery with the dinosaurs over our heads. 🙂 We put the finishing touches on our presentations and practiced one last time before the Closing Ceremony started. Before we said our hellos to our family and teachers we had one last group discussion about “What is Science?” and discovered that our definition has evolved from the first day. We went from “Facts” to a “Process”. Although we had to say our final goodbyes today, I hope this is the start of a lifetime of Adventures in Science! Stay in touch! 🙂
