Promoting the traveling science show on Bridgestreet!

I always enjoy promoting the MOST on Bridgestreet!

 

Ice Age Mammals of North America book review

Ice Age Mammals of North America by Ian M. Lange

In my search for reading material to help me better understand the Ice Age exhibit coming to the MOST, this has been the best.  This is a fantastic book for my needs.  I am not going to go into much of the content of the book, but I want to share a few thoughts.

The first thing I would like to point out is that the title and cover do not match what is under the hood.  If you couldn't read English and picked up a copy of this book, you might think this was meant for 8-12 year old kids.  It is glossy, floppy, has many illustrations, and the design of the text on the cover really appear to be created to get kids attention.  An intelligent and committed middle schooler may be able to follow the author's descriptions of the Ice Age, but this really seems like a book for high school students and adults.

What Ian M. Lange has done is create a fantastic overview of The Ice Age and how it related to North America.  The title implies the book is a guide to mammals, but much of the book is dedicated to explained the history of ice ages and the methods and history of the science.  He also does a great job describing many of the interesting animals from the Pleistocene that lived in North America.  What I like is that he puts the animals in an evolutionary context, explaining the species that let up to them.  In this way the reader gets a much better understanding of the relationship between the animals than a simple snapshots of each animal would do.  Mr. Lange even includes Woolly rhinos in the book.  He explains that they never made it to North America, but they got close enough and are really interesting.

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book are the pop-up sections.  Every so often the text will be interrupted with a pop up section that is a couple pages long.  Each one deals with an interesting question or topic.  Some of the topics include mammal mummies, clovis spears and culture, and tar pits.  Later this week I am leading a staff training on the traveling ice age exhibit, and I'm thinking that I will break the staff up into small groups and have each read one of these pop-up sections.

If I was going to recommend only one of the books I've read so far on the topic, this would be it.  This gives a great overview of what was happening in North America during the Pleistocene, and is full of interesting information.  .  Understanding the ice ages isn't just interesting from a "wow that's cool" perspective   It is an important topic for understanding human culture, environmental conservation, and climate change.  Start here and then journey into the many facets of this topic explored in other books.

Book Review: Frozen Earth

On my quest to learn more about the last ice age I recently read Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages by Doug Macdougall.  This 267 page popular science book is a great read. If you love going to museums and seeing the skeletons of the huge ice age mammals like mammoths and giant ground sloths, or get excited when you see a big boulder in a field where it doesn't seem to belong, than you will probably enjoy this, too.

Going into this book I knew some of the very basics about ice ages.  An ice age is a period of time when permanent glaciers cover much of the northern hemisphere and when ocean levels are much lower.  Ice a mile high covered my hometown, Syracuse, NY until something like 12,000 years ago.  In fact, much of the geology in Central New York was shaped by that ice.  Everything from the lakes and hills to the boulders and pebbles are remnants of the ice age.  And, thanks to the fiction of Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, I have followed  the lives of early hunter gatherers through the landscapes of ice age Europe.

What I really didn't know was the science, and this book was a great help.  Mr. Macdougall's book is very accessible, well organized, and packed with good information.  I must admit, though, I had to read it twice to try to remember half of what he wrote and I'm sure I could benefit from a third reading.

Frozen Earth starts with a summery of ice age science and reminds us that we are actually in an ice age right now.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The last ice age, the Pleistocene Ice Age is still happening.  It started around 3 million years ago and has been characterized by cold and warm periods referred to as glacial and interglacial. The last 10,000 years have been an interglacial period.  The last warm period during the Pleistocene Ice Age was around 120,000 years ago.  If you live in a place that was covered by glaciers all those years ago, it might seem strange to think an ice age is still happening.  If you live in Greenland, however, it might seem pretty obvious.  The Earth still has glaciers, some of which are even pretty close to the equator.  Probably all these glaciers have been there at least since the peak of the last glacial period 19,000 year ago.  Of course, many of these glaciers are currently melting away due to climate change, but at least for now they remind us that the ice ages are not over.

Mr. Macdougall spends the bulk of the book taking the reader on a tour of the history of the science from the mid 1800's to the present day.  We learn about Louis Agassiz, the first scientist to really develop and advance ice age theories.  He was the one who got people looking at glaciers, stranded boulders, and the scratches on rocks that stand out as evidence for the ice ages.  James Croll is one of the other scientists who's life we learn about, and who stands out to me.  Agassiz convinced the world that the ice ages were real, but it is was James Croll in the 1860's who started to figure out their cause in the eccentricities of the Earth's orbit.  The author does a great job taking the reader through the major innovations of ice age science.  I already knew that ice cores were one way to study the climate of the past, but Mr. Macdougall impressed me with how it actually works.  One thing I hadn't known about before was that scientists also drill for cores in the ocean floor.  The author explains that too, as well as other methods of understanding the past climate.

So what causes an ice age?  What Frozen Earth taught me is that a lot of factors contribute to an ice age.  It seems that our Earth's orbit around the Sun, which has small changes over time due to the gravitational influence of the other planets, is perhaps the trigger for ice ages.  But it doesn't work alone.  The position of continents, the carbon cycle, the water cycle, methane in the atmosphere, the circulation of the oceans, all contribute.  If you have looked into climate change science, these factors should sound familiar.  They are the same ones that relate to climate change.  The Earth is a dynamic place.  Everything is interconnected.

Could the current man-made climate change end the Pleistocene Ice Age?  This question forms the basis of the last chapter of the book.  Judging from the duration of past interglacial periods of the last 3 million years, we are due for another glacial period.  Geologic time scales are very long, so this may be another 10,000 years or more from now, but it should come.  As the Starks from Game of Thrones would say, "WINTER IS COMING," and when it does much of North America and Europe will be under ice.  But maybe it won't happen.  Scientists don't know if it is possible, but it may be that humans, through climate change, will actually end the glacial cycles or put them off for a time.

In this review I have tried to give you an idea for the feel of the book and point out some of the things I thought were interesting.  If I've piqued your interest, than please give the book a read.  After all, I've only just scratched the tip of the iceberg.

Top 5 Best NASA Websites

NASA logo, sometimes called
the "NASA meatball"

I don't know about you, but I love NASA.   I think what the scientists, engineers, and educators do there is important and I hope you do, too.  But maybe you don't.  And maybe you don't know much about them.  Here are descriptions of some of my favorite NASA websites.  These are not in any specific order, but together represent some of the best science websites on the internet.

TOP 5 BEST NASA WEBSITES

1. NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studios:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/

NASA Goddard
Scientific Visualization Studio
Webpage

This is probably the NASA website I use more than any other.  The Scientific Visualization Studios or SVS is made up of a team of scientists and artists that take NASA data and turn it into beautiful images and videos.  This is an archive of thousands of images and videos produced by NASA.  When I need new images or videos for a planetarium show or presentation, this is the place I go.  Although the front page does have a few categories to browse through, the site is mostly just a search engine that may bring up a couple hundred items for each search.  Many people will find this site a bit intimidating, but I assure you that your time here is well spent.  There is so much to learn.

2. NASA Visualization Explorer App

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasaviz/index.html

NASA Visualization Explorer

If I had an ipad, this would be one of the first apps I would get.  This is a FREE application available for ipads or usable online.  It is currently not available for any other platforms, but at some point it should be.  This app presents many of NASA's cool visualizations, like the ones on the SVS page, but is very user friendly.  The SVS team adds a new article twice a week.  Check it out!!!

3.  NASA Earth Observatory

 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

NASA Earth Observatory
website

Many people don't know this, but NASA does a ton of research on the Earth.  Seeing the Earth from space offers wonderful opportunities for science.  Not only did NASA design the weather satellites that provide the information you see on the Weather Channel, but they  take all types of measurements of the Earth's atmosphere, land, oceans, and even biology.  This site is a great place to find high quality and accessible visualizations.

4.  NASA Global Climate Change Website

http://climate.nasa.gov/index.cfm

NASA Global Climate
Change Website

NASA's Global Climate Change website is fantastic.  Trying to figure out what is going on with climate change can be a frustrating experience, but the information and design of this site make it a lot easier.  Climate Change is a topic that we should all be educating ourselves about.  This site has information for kids, adults, and teachers.  Please check it out.

5.  NASA TV

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

NASA TV website

NASA TV!  What more needs to be said.  Now you can stay caught up on NASA's missions and discoveries 24 hours a day.

Performing for Adolescence Psychiatric Patients Prt. 3

Last November I wrote two blog articles about performing science shows at Hutchings Psychiatric Hospital.        In the first article I explained what the experience was like for me, and the preparations I made before the shows.  In the second article I outlined some of the reasons I thought the shows were a success.  Here we are almost one year later, and last week I had the pleasure, thanks to financial support from OnCare, to work with the Hospital's patients again.  This experience was as successful as last year's, and I'd like to share some thoughts.

Well, the first thing I really thought about going into this was what demonstrations to bring.  The MOST has a number of demonstrations that are designed to be fun and interactive.  I could choose from bubble tricks, how to crush a can using air pressure, the science behind sound and music, the amazing properties of liquid nitrogen, or several other engaging demonstrations.  Last year, the patients loved meeting the museum's pet turtle and learning about the science of sound and music.  This time I decided to try the show I had been performing at the libraries this summer.  Beyond Dreams: The Real Science of the Night focuses on nocturnal animals and astronomy.  Acting out firefly light codes and using echolocation to chase down volunteer mosquitoes was a sure thing with the younger patients, but I wasn't so sure about the teen group.  I would have to think of something to spice it up a little.

The young children's show went great.  There were less than ten kids, all who looked to be in the 7-12 range.  They were interested in the subject, excited to volunteer, and curious about everything.  As part of the show I brought a live Madagascar hissing cockroach.  This was a big hit.  When I first revealed the cockroach, some of the kids said they were scared and didn't want me to get near them with it, and certainly didn't want to touch it.  By the end of the show I think every one of them not only got up close to the insect, but asked to touch it as well.  Kids have such a natural interest in animals, and even though a part of them was afraid, the opportunity to touch the insect was too good to pass up.  Hopefully, overcoming their fear added a confidence boost for the day.  Having a small group of kids was key to the success of the show.  It allowed for an informal atmosphere and enough time for the patients to change their minds a couple of times regarding the cockroach.  If I am at a school with say 30 or 40 students in line to touch the cockroach, there may not be enough time for them to change their mind.

The MOST's Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
Photographed by Dustin Angell

The show for the adolescent group was another success.  I have personally performed around 150 traveling science shows in 2012 so far, but only a very small number included teenagers in the audience.  This was a chance to work outside of my normal comfort zone with an age group that is often skeptical of planned learning activities.  I think that challenge was part of the reason why a successful show for this age group meant so much to me.  I believed that nocturnal animals, star gazing, and astronomy are science topics for all ages, but I also knew how carefully I would have to "pitch" or "package" these topics to sell the teens on them.  When working with young kids my approach is simple: I demonstrate my own amazement and wonder with science and the natural world and give them a chance to participate.  That is really all it takes.  With the teens I tried something different.

Before becoming a science educator I was trained in college as a photographer.  Since I was a child I have felt that art was a calling for me.  In fact I still do, and the Beyond Dreams show utilizes a lot of my own photography work.  Fortunately, the first slide in the show is a photograph of mine, so I was able to introduce this side of myself.  I asked if any of them were interested in photography and about half put their hands up.  I explained that I used a lot of my own photography in the show and would be happy to answer any questions about it, which I did end up doing.

When it came to the parts of the show where audience members volunteered to help me act out certain things, I was careful to discard some of the more childish parts.  The cockroach was a hit again, and I think just about everyone ended up touching it.

Screenshot from Stellarium

What really got the attention of the adolescents was the astronomy section.  I don't think I showed them anything specifically that really astonished or excited them.  I think it the topic of astronomy did that all on its own.  I do many planetarium shows at the MOST, but don't usually use astronomy as a topic as part of the traveling science program.  However, it seems that whenever I do show astronomy images or use the free computer program Stellarium to teach about constellations, the audience can't get enough.  They just boil over with questions.  The show for the adolescent group ended up having an extra 10-15 minutes of question time.  The patients seemed to forget themselves and their problems, and for those few minutes they were concerned with something much bigger than themselves or even the Earth.  I was enjoying myself so much that I could have continued answering questions all day, but the patients needed to move on with their schedule.

I can't say that the patients will go home and start listening for owls, watching for bugs, or looking for constellations.  I don't really know what long term effect these 45 minute shows have.  But I do know that during both shows I saw kids enjoying a learning experience that aimed at empowering them with knowledge and confidence.  A room full of any kids doing this feels like a success to me, but when the kids are hospitalized psychiatric patients it seems like a step in the right direction, and even a move towards healing.

Neanderthal book review

This October the MOST is bringing in a traveling exhibit on Ice Age Mammals.  Last fall our dinosaur exhibit came from the same company (Kokoro Exhibits), and the quality was very nice.  The dinosaurs were animatronic and made sounds, too.  Many children wondered if they were real, and at least one middle school student tried to feed one of the raptors her cell phone.  From what I've seen on Kokoro's site, the Ice Age exhibit should be of a similar quality.

I love when we get in a new exhibit like this, because it gives me the opportunity to research the topic.  To begin my studies, I read Clive Finlayson's The Humans Who Went Extict: Why Neanderthals died out and we survived.

First off, though this book is relatively short (220 pages) it is not a simple read.  The author doesn't seem to be writing for a general population.  The reader should probably have some understanding of evolution, ecology, and geology.  His book is an overview of his opinions on human and proto-human populations during the last several million years, with a tighter focus on the last 780,000 years, a period characterized by cycles of ice ages.  If this sounds as interesting to you as it does to me, than you should enjoy the book.

Finlayson's perspective in The Humans Who Went Extict is very much in line with the thinking of Jared Diamond, found in his influential works Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.  The assumption of both authors is that the success of different groups of people come not from any inherent superiority of intelligence, but from being in the right place at the right time.  Jared Diamond does a good job of showing that human history over the last 40,000 years is powerfully shaped by geography and natural resources.  Finlayson's book takes this same view, only he sees Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, Ice Age Homo Sapiens, and possibly even other groups of pre-historic humans as being similar in intellect.

Finlayson sees the story of humans (including Neanderthals) during the ice ages as one controlled by changes in habitat and ecology brought about by extremes in climate change.  Let's take a look at some of the points he makes during the book.

Modern humans weren't always the only humans:  During the last 780,000 years there have been a variety of human species that have lived at the same time.  For example, around 50,000 years ago Homo sapiens shared the planet with Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, and possibly others.  These different humans didn't necessarily interact or live near each other, but they were all here.

Neanderthals weren't dumb:  Neanderthals may not have made art or worn jewelry, but Finlayson says that this doesn't matter and should not be a prerequisite when looking for intellect.  He also makes the point to say that some of them may have done these things anyway.  Many of the sites where tools and human ornaments are found don't have any human skeletons with them.  Scientists assume that the more modern artifacts come from our ancestors, but we don't really know.  We do know that Neanderthals, like all humans, adapted to their environments.  Their diet and culture depended on where they lived.

Neanderthals weren't made for the cold or the plains:  One popular view of Neanderthals is that they were adapted to the ice age cold and hunted woolly mammoths.  Finlayson believes this is wrong.  Neanderthal bodies were wide and strong, but this was an adaptation for hunting and not for the cold.  And while some may have hunted woolly mammoths, Neanderthals were probably not very good at it.  Neanderthals evolved their body types hunting in forests and woody savannahs, where they could ambush there prey and fight them head on.  Neanderthals did live as far north as the British Isles, but these were only during interglacial times, when the climate warmed up.  As soon as the next ice age came, the Neanderthal range would contract again.  Because of their stocky bodies built for ambushing, Neanderthals were not well suited for the long distances required for hunting animal herds on the plains.

Modern human's didn't cause Neanderthals to go extinct:  The popular conception about the demise of Neanderthals is that modern humans did it.  We think this because we can see Neanderthal populations and their ancestors in Europe for 500,000 years or more, but they disappear when humans enter the region around 30,000.  This evidence, and the fact that we always assumed they were stupid, is taken to mean that we either outcompete them or murdered them.  Finlayson says that there is no evidence for any of this.  In fact, he points out that when our ancestors reached into Europe and other places where Neanderthals had lived, they were mostly already gone.  Certainly there were probably moments of contact, which could include interbreeding and cultural diffusion, but there is no reason to suspect genocide.  He even finds cases in which different human species did live near each other for thousands of years.

Modern humans survived because they were better adapted to the plains:  The ice ages brought with them the mammoth-steppe, a type of treeless plains.  Homo sapiens were better adapted to this habitat because they were built to walk long distances and lived in larger social groups than Neanderthals.  It is because of these features Finlayson claims that wolves and Homo sapiens were the best predators for the plains.  Finlayson beleives that as these plains spread the range of the Neanderthals shrunk until the species was isolated into such small groups that it went extinct.

There is a lot that we don't know and scientists have very contradictory perspectives because of that:  I want to end the book review with this final point.  Finlayson makes it clear right from the beginning that there are a lot of differences of opinions on the topic of the book, and much of this is because of a lack of evidence.  When the author comes to contested issues, he makes a point to let the reader know a little about the history of the arguments surrounding it.  He, of course, has his own opinion about each of these issues, and his always seem to make the most sense.  After finishing the book I do think that Finlayson is a credible source.  He seems to have a strong grip on all of the developments in the field, and his endnotes are almost as long as the book itself.  I am now eager to start another book by another author and see what they have to say.

Sun-Earth Day 2012 Transit of Venus

June 5th was NASA's Sun-Earth Day! This was a celebration of the 2012 Transit of Venus.  A transit is when something passes through something else, and in this case the planet Venus was passing across the face of the sun. Since it is dangerous to look at the sun directly and because Venus won't appear to transit the sun again for over 100 years, my fellow science educators and I decided to become part of the celebration. We often teach people about astronomy at the MOST, but this was the first time our team tried to have a public viewing event. The MOST is located in downtown Syracuse and is surrounded by tall buildings and plenty of light pollution. Since this event involved the sun and would take place in a area of the sky we could see from outside the building, we knew it could work. We started putting the event together a few months beforehand and spreading the word. We put together a number of activities to do inside, as well as a live webcast of the event from Hawaii, and arranged to have sun-safe telescopes set up outside. One of our volunteers brought a couple and the Syracuse Astronomical Society brought the rest.

For my part, I helped organize a computer lab with Sun-Earth Day videos from NASA, gave two planetarium shows that focused on debunking 2012 "end of the world" nonsense, and a station that tough people how to write numbers like the Ancient Maya. The Ancient Maya were Venus experts, and calculated their data with a very different number system than the decimal system we use today.

As June 5th approached the skies grew overcast and I came down with the flu. The event at the MOST started at 6pm, and I arrived a few hours earlier to finish setting up. I was also thinking that I might have to leave before the event, and stay home sick. When I arrived, however, I learned that people had been calling the museum non-stop. I thought that because of the bad weather we might get thirty people to show up, but we already had more than 80 reservations! Staying home sick was not going to be an option. A short trip to the pharmacy later and I was ready to give it my best.

Venus is covered by thick clouds.  Image: NASA

 Our event ended up succeeding beyond our expectations. The weather cleared up, the astronomy society did a great job with their telescopes, our activities were a hit, and over 150 people participated! I really wasn't sure I would have a chance to actually see the transit. While inside I was enjoying teaching people about the ancient Maya counting system, which is a base 20 instead of a base 10 system. My first guest was a mathematician and it certainly didn't take him long to catch on. I was also impressed by an elementary student who loved numbers.  He did a great job taking the time he needed to learn the system.  If you are curious about the Maya system, you can learn it from the Calendar in the Sky website. I was fortunate to recently participate in a 2-day training at the NYC Natural History Museum run by the Calendar in the Sky people. If you go to the resource section of the website, there are a number of lesson plans you can view or download. A couple of these will teach you about the counting system. The planetarium shows were both almost filled to capacity. There wasn't a lot of questions asked, unfortunately, but the shows went well. Often groups with a lot of adults don't ask questions. If I hadn't been sick, maybe I could have coaxed a little more out of them, but I think most everybody enjoyed the show.

The surface of Venus if you could look
through the clouds.
Image: NASA

 And now for the best part! Just as I finished the second planetarium show and the event was ending, my girlfriend surprised me by showing up. She had already seen the transit and urged me to get outside to the telescopes while there was still time. The sun was pretty low in the horizon and most of the scopes were already taken down. Luckily, I was able to look through one just before the sun went behind a phone pole or something. In fact, I may have been the last one to see it that day.

I did go home and spend the night with a nasty fever and little sleep, but I'm still glad I worked the event and that Emily showed up to bring me outside. I will never again have a chance to see this happen, but now I can remember it and talk of it for the rest of my life.

The day before the event I went on Channel 9's Bridge Street morning show to promote Sun-Earth Day as well as other things happening at the MOST.  If your curious, you can watch the clip below.

 

 I was also on Bridge Street a couple months ago to promote our Nano Science Week. You can watch that video below, too.