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Happy Thanksgiving!

11/30/2014

Author: Maddie Van Beek

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As you all know, last Thursday was Thanksgiving! Today, we are going to research the history of Thanksgiving, test out Squanto’s gardening methods, and learn how to track our daily diets!

We all picture the first Thanksgiving as a day spent with the pilgrims and the Native Americans chowing down on a Thanksgiving feast. Did you know that there were actually several “first Thanksgivings?”

Learn more about the American history of Thanksgiving!

American History of Thanksgiving

What were the other “first Thanksgivings?”

Did you know November is National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month? What a great time to learn more about Native American history and culture, especially as we celebrate Thanksgiving!

More information on Native American histories and tribes:

Native American Tribes

While Thanksgiving is a great time to spend with family and celebrate an abundance of food, it is also important to remember the roots of Thanksgiving. We don’t often remember the Wampanoag’s point of view during the first Thanksgiving. Take some time to consider how the Wampanoag’s might have felt when the first white settlers arrived.

Quickwrite: Write in the perspective of a member of the Wampanoag tribe when the white settlers arrived at Plymouth. How do you feel?

A Wampanoag Viewpoint

The Wampanoags were the Native American tribe that befriended the settlers and accompanied them in the “first Thanksgiving” meal. Squanto was one of the Wampanoags that is well known for aiding the settlers in their time of need. One way Squanto helped out was to assist them in growing corn by using fish. Check out Squanto’s gardening methods!

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Hypothesize: How might fish emulsion help or harm the growth of a corn plant? Will it really make that much of a difference?

YOU WILL NEED:

Water
Corn seeds
Fish emulsion
Milk cartons
Scissors
Soil

YOU WILL DO:

Use the scissors to cut the top off of two half-pint milk cartons (ask an adult for help).
Fill both cartons with soil.
Read and follow the directions on your corn seed packet to plant one seed in each carton.
Push the corn seed 1-2 inches into the surface of the soil.
Label one milk carton “Control” and one milk carton “Variable.”
Your control plant will be watered only with plain water.
Your variable plant will be watered with a mixture of water and fish emulsion.
Follow the package instructions on the fish emulsion to dilute it with water.
Water your Control plant with water and your variable plant with the diluted fish emulsion.
Place both plants in the sun.
Water both plants each day and record your observations in a daily log.
Measure both plants’ growth each day and record.
What differences do you see in the two plants?
Create a graph at the end of your experiment to show the differences in growth.
Reflect: How did the fish emulsion make a difference in the growth of the variable plant? Why do you think this is?

Now that we’ve talked about GROWING food, let’s think about EATING food!

Did you know that the average American eats over 4,000 calories on Thanksgiving day?! Wow! To put that in perspective, the average diet is only about 2,000 calories/day.

https://cdxlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/advice-for-cooking-your-first-thanksgiving-meal-wedding-paper-.jpg

Calories in a Thanksgiving meal:

Here’s an idea of how many calories you should have in a day:

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/weight-management-calories/calories/empty-calories-amount.html

Keep in mind that physical activity increases your caloric need! Think of your body like a car--let’s say your car holds 15 gallons of gas. You fill it up with 15 gallons. If your car just sits in the garage, it doesn’t lose any gas, but if you go for a drive, it burns gas. Is your tank still full after a 200-mile drive? No! If you want your gas tank to be full, you would have to refuel. It’s the same way with your body! For example, if my daily caloric need is 2,000 calories, and I burn 500 calories on a run, then I should actually consume 2,500 calories so my body still gets the calories it needs to stay fueled.

Here’s more information about what you can do to have a healthy, balanced diet:

Example of a Food Plan

How many calories are in your daily schedule?

Are you eating a balanced diet?

Create a food diary to see what your diet is really like! The point is not for you to count every calorie you eat--the point is that when we pay attention to what we put into our bodies, we are more conscious of what we are consuming. Being cognizant of the way you eat will help you make healthy choices for YOUR body!

Predict:

How many calories do you think you eat in a normal day?

Do you think you have a balanced diet?

What do you think you eat too much of?

What do you think you don’t get enough of?

Each day for one week, write down everything you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Each time you write down a food, determine whether it is a fruit, vegetable, grain, dairy, protein or fat.

At the end of the week, look back at your food chart and reflect on your diet. About what percentage of your diet is protein? Fat? Does your daily diet look like the My Plate recommendation? Are you getting enough fruits and vegetables? Being conscious of your diet is the first step to taking care of a happy, healthy body!

Other References:

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/02/lp286-03.shtml

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/thanksgiving/celebration.html#

http://www.tolatsga.org/Compacts.html#Wampanoag

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Winter is here to stay! Make winter fun and informative with a daily snow log.

11/15/2014

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Author: Maddie Van Beek

Winter is officially here in Fargo, North Dakota! The first snow has fallen, and Midwesterners are taking their winter coats and boots out of storage until further notice. Although some people get down on winter weather, we can have fun with snow this winter through different winter science activities! Create a daily snow log to track the kinds of snow you see, the types of snowfall you experience, and the kinds of snow formations you identify!

Before you start on your activities, let’s learn a little bit more about this fluffy white stuff we call snow.

Use this website, “All About Snow,” to answer your snow questions!

All About Snow

How does snow form?

Most of us know that snow cannot form unless it is below freezing temperatures (32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius), but did you know that snow will not form if it is too cold? It’s true! Because colder air holds less water vapor, it is more difficult for snow to form when the temperature is extremely cold. Snow usually does not form below 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

What kinds of snow are there?
There is a rumor out there that the Inuit have over 100 words for snow! Although that may be a myth, there really are many words to describe specific types of snow.

Find out the difference between the four following types of snow!

Snowflake

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Hoarfrost_reif.jpg

2. Hoarfrost

3. Graupel

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http://polycrystals.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/snowflakes-made-from-ice-crystals-by-jjschad1.jpg?w=300&h=276

4. Polycrystal

See if you can identify the different types of snow throughout this winter! Take pictures and keep them in a daily snow log.

Use this Snowflake Guide to identify specific kinds of snowflakes that you find this winter!

Snowflake Guide

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/snowtypes4.jpg

What types of snowfall are there?

Did you know there is a difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm? A snowstorm requires a large amount of snowfall, while a blizzard is accompanied by violent winds, low visibility, and lasts at least three hours!

http://www.fabianvorderegger.com/wp-content/uploads/postimages/31fc6d6951f1c6018716b20b551a977c.jpg

Here is an example of a blizzard. As you can see, it is quite windy!!

Check out this time lapse of a snowstorm in Arkansas--lots of snow, but not a whole lot of wind.

What other types of snowfall are there? Identify and describe them! When it snows this winter, record the type of snowfall in your daily snow log.

What kinds of snow cover are there?
There are many different kinds of snow cover. In the Midwest, we get seasonal snow every year. Seasonal snow is snow that only stays for one season.

What are the other types of snow cover?

What types of snow formations have you seen?
Snow formations include snow cornices, snow crusts, snow dunes, among many others. Have you ever walked carefully on top of crunchy snow, trying not to fall through? The crunchy, frozen snow on top is the snow crust! The snow crust covers the softer snow underneath.

Snow crust:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TklXy0BST-Y/TyYIR6PQc4I/AAAAAAAAC0A/LqwI7GJcxkE/s1600/Silent+Trails+009.jpg

Define and draw the different kinds of snow formations!

At the end of this winter, your snow log should be full of interesting snow observations! You can include pictures and drawings along with your descriptions to make your log even more accurate and detailed. Use a snow gauge to add data about snowfall to your daily snow log.

Track the inches of snow by creating a snow gauge.

YOU WILL NEED:

Scissors or knife
2-liter pop bottle
Permanent marker
Tape measure or ruler

YOU WILL DO:

Ask an adult for help!
Use a scissors or knife to cut the top off of an empty 2-liter pop bottle. Cut at the point where the bottle starts to taper off. Once you cut the top off, your bottle should be a cylinder.
Pour a few inches of sand into your bottle. This is to weigh your bottle down so it does not blow over.
Measure your pop bottle from the top of the sand to the top of the bottle.
Mark each inch on your pop bottle with your permanent marker.
Go outside and locate a place where your bottle could collect snow. Under a tree would not be a good spot, since the branches may block some of the snowfall.
Each time it snows, check your bottle and record the number of inches in your daily snow log!

Figure out the snow water equivalent
Some people assume that ten inches of snow equals about one inch of water. This is not always the case!

Measure how many inches of snow are in your snow gauge.
Bring your snow gauge inside and let the snow melt into water.
Measure how many inches of water are now in your snow gauge.
What is the water-to-snow ratio? For example, if I had 8 inches of snow, and when it melted I had 1 inch of water, the water-to-snow ratio would be 1:8.
If you want to find out the percent, take 1 (inches of water) divided by 8 (inches of snow). 1/8 = 0.125. Multiply your answer by 100 to get the percent. 0.125 x 100 = 12.5%. This means that for the amount of snow you measured, 12.5% of that measurement is the amount of water you measured.
Do this on a regular basis to track how temperature, wind, and the different kinds of snowfall affect the water-to-snow ratio!

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Ebola and Infectious Diseases

11/7/2014

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Author: Maddie Van Beek

I’m guessing that at this point, all of you have heard of the dreaded ebola virus. Just in the past few months, US citizens have been more concerned than ever about this horrific disease. In this blog, you will learn a little bit about the background of the ebola virus, as well as how diseases spread.

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/08/140805_MEDEX_EbolaUSA.jpg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpg

Ebola’s History and Mortality Rate

First identified in 1976 in Congo near Ebola river.
Then: 90% mortality
Now: 50% mortality

How did ebola evolve to affect humans?

2014 Ebola Outbreak: Largest in HISTORY

Ebola is now spreading in West Africa and concentrated in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
The number of cases that have occurred during this outbreak have been more than the combined number of cases occurring previous to 2014 combined.

# of ebola cases 1976-2013 < # of ebola cases in 2014

How does ebola spread?

As you saw in the video, ebola spreads first from animal to human and then from human to human. Fruit bats, monkeys, gorillas and other primates become infected with ebola and become carriers. People may become infected with ebola by eating uncooked infected meat or coming in contact with infected animals. Once people are infected, they can infect other people by coming in contact with each other’s bodily fluids.

How is ebola contracted?

Ebola in the US

Although ebola has stayed out of the US in the past, it has recently made its way in, starting with a Texas man who was diagnosed on September 30th, 2014 and passed away on October 8th. The man had traveled from Liberia to Texas, so he was infected in Liberia before coming to the US. Since then, three others have been reported to have ebola. Two of these people who have contracted ebola have been health care workers from the Dallas, Texas, hospital where the first ebola patient was treated, and the third was a New York City doctor who had traveled to Guinea. Both Dallas patients have recovered and the New York City patient is currently being treated.

Why would health care providers be the ones to get ebola? Shouldn’t they knew the best way to stay healthy?

Health care providers are at a higher risk, since they are treating those who have ebola. Although ebola can only be spread through bodily fluids, treating someone who is vomiting could lead to infiltration of the disease through touching the infected person’s bodily fluids and then touching broken skin or mucus membranes such as the eyes. Health care providers treating patients with ebola have a much higher risk than the average US citizen, since they are in direct contact with the disease.

This is the kind of suit medical professionals wear to avoid contact with the disease when treating an ebola patient:

Do we need to worry about ebola spreading in the US?

No! The reason ebola spreads so quickly and causes so many deaths in other countries is because they do not have adequate healthcare available to them. In the US, health care providers are not concerned about ebola spreading; as stated, ebola is difficult to contract in its present form and is easily stoppable when the right procedures are followed.

In order to help control the spread of diseases, teams of healthcare professionals work together to quarantine infected people, immunize people at risk, educate the public about prevention strategies, and treat infected people swiftly and aggressively.

Currently, there is no safe ebola vaccine.

Do I need to worry about getting ebola?

Although ebola is very dangerous, you most likely have no need to worry. It’s very difficult to actually get ebola, since you have to come in contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids and then get those bodily fluids in a mucus membrane such as your mouth, eyes, nose, etc. Ebola does NOT spread like a cold--you can’t get ebola from a sneeze or a cough--it’s not an airborne disease. Just like any other virus or disease, you can avoid ebola and help keep it from spreading by washing your hands, not sharing drinks, chapstick, etc., staying home if you are sick, and going to the doctor if you have symptoms.

And remember, only ebola victims with symptoms are infectious--the disease does not spread until the infected person is already showing symptoms.

The incubation period for ebola is 2-21 days. This means it may take 2-21 days to show symptoms of ebola. Therefore, if you come in contact with the disease, you should be on watch for about three weeks.

Quick look at ebola vs. the flu:

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/is-it-flu-or-ebola.pdf

How do diseases spread, anyway?
Simulation of how diseases spread:

This activity is NOT an accurate simulation of ebola--yes, ebola spreads in a similar manner, but with adequate health care and preventative strategies, ebola can be kept from spreading in a manner similar to the simulation. This simulation is just to help you understand how unchecked infectious diseases may spread from person to person.

YOU WILL NEED:

Lemon juice

Clear cups

Water

Paper

Writing utensils

A light source

Red and blue food coloring

Water droppers

An iron, and a heat-proof surface to use it on

YOU WILL DO:

Get a group of twenty or so students together.
Fill nineteen cups with water and one cup with lemon juice.
Hand out the cups, paper, and water droppers to each participant, and don’t announce who has the lemon juice.
Explain that there will be six one-minute rounds in this simulation.
You may be wondering what lemon juice could have to do with infectious diseases. Lemon juice can actually be used as “invisible ink,” so the lemon juice represents the invisible infectious disease. One person has lemon juice in their cup, while others only have water. All participants should have a piece of paper with them for round one.
Round 1: Give participants 60 seconds to move around the room; whenever they come in contact with each other, they should take a drop of water from the other’s cup and dot it on their piece of paper. This represents coming in contact with others’ body fluids.
After the 60 seconds is up, use the iron on its hottest setting, and iron everyone’s papers. The heat from the iron will cause the lemon juice to turn brown. Those that came in contact with the lemon juice will have a brownish spot on their paper, while others will just have water spots. Those with the brown spot represent people who have been infected with the disease. Record the number of people who were infected.

Ok, so is this demonstration completely accurate? No! There was only one person spreading the disease. Let’s try something new!

8. Once again, all participants get a cup of water. This time, give one person a red dye dropper. Just like the lemon juice, the red dye represents the disease. Participants get 60 seconds to rotate around the room. The person with the red dye will put a drop of red dye in the cup of each student he or she comes in contact with. Those who receive a red drop will then also become disease carriers (equipped with red dye). They will continue to spread the disease by putting a drop of red dye into the cup of each person they encounter.

9. After 60 seconds, analyze how many people have pinkish-colored water--that’s how many now have the virus!

10. Create two graphs for round 1 and round 2 to demonstrate how many people became “infected” in each round. The Y-axis should be number of people, and X-axis should be time. How do they look different? Which round had more infected people? Which round more accurately demonstrates how quickly a virus can spread?

You should end up with something like this:

11. This time, you are going to inoculate 20% of your group. Inoculate means to treat with a vaccine to provide immunity against a disease. Start by putting a few drops of blue food coloring into 20% of the cups. If you have twenty people, four people will get cups with blue water. Repeat step 8.

12. You could now have some people with red water (people infected with the disease), blue water (inoculated people who did not come in contact with the disease) or purple water (inoculated people who came in contact with the disease). Because inoculated people were protected from the virus, they do not count towards the infected number of people. Before moving on to round 4, record the number of infected students.

13. Round 4: This time, start by inoculating 40% of the class. If you have twenty people, eight should now start with blue water. Repeat step 8. Record the number of infected students.

14. Round 5: Start by inoculating 60% of the class. Repeat step 8. Record the number of infected students.

15. Round 6: Start by inoculating 80% of the class. Repeat step 8. Record the number of infected students.

16. Make a bar graph for rounds 2-6 and see how inoculation affects the spread of the disease.

You should end up with something like this:

17. Reflect on this activity. What was not realistic about this simulation? What preventative measures could people take in real life to avoid infection?

References

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Winter is here to stay! Make winter fun and informative with a daily snow log.

Ebola and Infectious Diseases

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