Welcome to Our Andrill Blog Site

On Sunday, July 6, 2008, I will be flying south to Texas for a week of science exploration known as the School of Rock. I will be joined by eleven other teachers around the globe to study with scientists who share an interest in exploring what climate history lies inside core samples from the sea floor. The Deep Earth Academy provides teachers with hands-on experience side by side with scientists who have taken core samples and stored them in this Texas core depository for study. Join me on my journey of discovery as I journal about this experience. Read about what I do, who I meet, what discoveries I make about myself and this important field of science, and then comment back to me. Hope to hear from you while I am there from July 6-14.  If you want to get a head start on knowing what the Ocean Drilling Program and its Deep Earth Academy is all about, check out the following websites:
1.  Bubba's interactive tour of the ocean drilling ship, the Joides Resolution or JR
http://www.oceanleadership.org/learning/Bubba
2.   Check out the teachers and scientists involved in this summer's School of Rock at Texas A & M
http://www.oceanleadership.org/schoolofrock2008/teachers.html
3.  From ocean floor to climate reconstruction video-this 5 minute video explains ocean drilling research
http://www.deepearthacademy.org/climate
4.   What on Earth is a core?  Understand the focal point of ocean drilling
http://www.oceanleadership.org/classroom/cores
5.  Legacy of Scientific Ocean Drilling-a comprehensive view of the ocean drilling program
http://iodp-usio.org/About/legacy.html

The Dinosaurs and Disasters Day at Elephant Hall at UNL was a tremendous success with over 2,000 visitors exploring the day away.  The exciting part for our class, was creating the Andrill Flexhibit activities which were available for families to explore that day.  Students in our 6th grade science class at Pound experimented with the activities and built the exhibits to be shared during the day at the museum.   There were 20 students who volunteered their time on Saturday to demonstrate these Flexhibits.  We created diatom core samples, made two drill models, demonstrated the glacial ice melting with "flubber," shared the animal adaptations through blubber gloves and the food chain, and showed how the ice sheet becomes an ice shelf and drops sediment to the sea floor.  Two of our students shared their new hit song, "Rollin on the Ice Shelves" with several crowds of onlookers during the day.  Their tune will be posted at the bottom of this blog soon for all to hear. 

Our students became the scientists behind the activities as they talked the science talk to the families that came to hear, see, and touch their exhibits.  Student volunteers even learned more as Andrill scientists shared details about their Andrill experience with them.  What a grand day to learn so much and give so much, all in the name of Science. 

There are so many people we want to thank.  We want to thank Louise Huffman, Andrill's Education Outreach Coordinator, for helping us experiment and display the Flexhibit activities, to LuAnn Dahlman for creating and developing the Flexhibit materials so we could understand the science behind Andrill, and ALL of the Andrill Scientist friends we made who encouraged us as we shared our information with the public and gave us other vital information so our demonstrations would be so successful.  We also thank Michelle for designing the incredible "Andrill Rocks" t-shirts we wore. 
THANK YOU ANDRILL for all you have done to help us understand, grow, and explore the world beyond our Science classroom.  We will continue to Think South and Think Globally because of our experiences.
 

We made core samples that had fake diatoms.  The diatoms were beads.  Each different color of bead stood for a different diatom from a different past environment.  The next day, we traded our cores and dug up the diatoms.  Diatoms help to tell scientists about the climate history in the area they are found.

 
Louise Huffman is the education coordinator for the Andrill Project.  She happened to come to our class.  She showed us many pictures of her trip to Antarctica.  We did an activity with her and she taught us about diatoms.  She also showed us how the Andrill drill works and the people who work there.  She brought back our Pound banner with Antarctica air on it and it was signed by some of the scientists.  It was a great honor to have Louise Huffman, an Antarctica scientist, come to our school.

Krill is the most popular food for sea animals.  Next to phytoplankton and zooplankton, it is the main food in the Antarctic food chain.  Then fin fish, and squid.  We learned that if krill dies out, then many other Antarctic animals will die, too.  Whales, seals, and seabirds are at the top of the food chain, which means they don't get eaten.

We learned about the carrying capacity of the ocean in which the krill live.  We played a game with buttons representing the krill.  We harvested the krill to see if we could keep the carrying capacity of the ocean stable.  We found out krill are disappearing because of overfishing.  Many creatures in the ocean around Antarctica depend on krill to live.  If there is not enough krill, the animals won't survive either.  Phytoplankton, tiny floating plants, that grow in Antarctic's summer season, get eaten by the krill. 

The Inconvenient Truth is a video about global warming by Al Gore.  It focuses on the effects of global warming in our society.  One of the segments showed us how in the Arctic, polar bears are going to be gone because they go out too far in the ocean to find their food.  There is no ice for them and so they don't survive.  The ice is melting due to warmer climates.

Today we learned what happens when ice sheets melt.  When they melt, all the sediments drop to the bottom of the ocean.  So, all the diatoms in the sediment drop, too.  When Andrill scientists drill for core samples, they locate diatoms in the sediment core which tells them a tale about the history of Antarctica.

You can learn about diatoms by clicking on the link below.

OliviaS.31.mp3

This picture is of the turbines used to make electricity at Hoover Dam.  Click on the Energy2.mp3 link below to hear the podcast about energy resources.

Energy2.mp3

In Science class, we learned about static electricity.  Sometimes you think of static electricity as non-harmful, but it can be very deadly.  For example, lightning has killed many thousands of people over the years.  Lightning is a kind of static discharge.  We have experimented with balloons in class, to see how static works.  Our experiments showed us the properties of static electricity.  Static can be very interesting, but remember it can be very deadly.

We watched a video about static discharge.  A lady went to fill up her car with gas.  As she went to fill up her tank, she released the static discharge that she had.   By touching the door, she released her static electricity.  But when she got in the car again, she had been rubbing her clothes against the seat, and then got out and never discharged her static.  When she touched the gas nozzle, the fumes ignited from the spark of static discharge and there were flames.  Luckily, the lady did not get hurt.

In Science class we learned about electric motors.  In fact, we even made one.  Most of the motors didn't work and we learned that you might have to change some variables.  We used electricity and magnetism to try and make the coil of wire spin freely.  Electricity flowed through the coils, then there were magnets under the coils that repelled and attracted the coils.

Andrill is a program where they "dig the past."  Antarctica was once an island.  How do we know this?  Scientists have been drilling core samples from the sea floor below its surface to see Antarctic's past and predict the future.  One of Andrill's scientists, Richard Levy, came to Pound Middle School to show us what they do in Antarctica and about the rocks they study.  Antarctica was first an island at the bottom of the world.  Then 35-50 million years ago ice sheets began to form. About 15-10 million years ago Antarctica's ice sheets had fully formed.  Around 5 million years ago some of the ice sheets retreated.  Today we know Antarctica as a frozen piece of land.  The picture is of the drill site this year with a snowcat used for transportation.  On the snowcat is our Pound Middle School Banner and Richard Levy is standing beside it.