I am so pleased with the variety of science night projects that you guys are working on. I realize that 2nd period is getting the short end of the stick due to the state exams but please feel free to come in during rec to use the laptops and work on your posters.

Saturday was a great day to pick up garbage! We had an overly-
cheerful adopt-a-highway crew composed of Lynzee, Courtney, Sarah, and
Mackenzie as we cleaned our 1-mile stretch of S. Main st ext. Thanks
guys!

After school, Darren and Alan stopped by to help out in the school
garden. Thanks guys! So far we have potatoes, lettuce, spinach,
garlic, and onions planted.

Today we set up our small mammal survey of the GCS woods. We measured out a 100m transect line and put traps every 10m. We are trying to figure out what type of habitat small mammals will be found in. Student volunteers will be coming in at 7:15 each morning next week to check the traps and record data. Above, members of 5th period measure out the traps and below, members of 1st period pose for a class photo on a fallen cherry tree.

Today some students began planting the GCS garden. We planted a bed
of potatoes for fall harvest and then beds of lettuce and spinach for
harvest this June. All of the beds should be finished by the end of
the week.

Today after school, Cross and Josh stayed after to help update our student farm. We're in the process of putting in raised beds after the amazing fence replacement from last weekend's Groton Make a Difference Day! The boys built a few of the boxes using rot-resistant wood that was donated by Mr. Perosio. Mr. Wiech and Mr. Hsu helped out as well.
New "Master Gardener" member, Courtney Coffey, helps shovel GCS compost into the garden beds. This is what your lunches look like after six months of decomposition. A healthy garden has a good mixture of soil and organic matter such as compost and/or manure.
The garden is looking great. In the end, we will have twenty-one 10' x 5' raised beds devoted to fruits and vegetables for our school cafeteria. Everyone is helping out, whether you build boxes like Cross and Josh or compost your lunch scraps in the cafeteria. We will start sowing seeds later this week.

For our annual Earth Day activity, the 7th grade planted trees around the school campus as part of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's free seedlings for schools program. We planted about 100 trees of 3 native species that have high wildlife food value (mountain ash, crabapple, and highbush cranberry). Earth Day is a week away...what will YOU do?

The boys have been working hard getting hundreds of 2L bottles ready for our new greenhouse. It may take a couple years and 1,000 more bottles but we will eventially have a 100% recycled/reclaimed greenhouse for Groton Science classes.

Next Saturday at noon, roughly 100 Cornell students will be in Groton for a day of community service. If any middle school students want to help out, one of the areas scheduled for work is our school garden. We will be putting up the new greenhouse and redoing the garden fence. Please see me for more information.

Since we're discussing the skeletal system in class, lets talk about the effects of drinking soda. Personally, I think it is horrible...and that's one thing I would change about our school. Kids love it and I feel like a "grown-up" when I talk bad about it. But it's a fact that (especially in women) the acids in soda are very bad for us. We are all encouraged to get a lot of calcium "for our bones" right?? The acid in soda actually prevents our bones from absorbing that calcium. This is especially true for females as many become prone to osteoporosis later in life.

In the 1950's Coca-Cola was considered a Friday evening treat that you drank at the movies, but today the average American drinks 55 gallons of soda a year! In contrast, how many gallons of water do you drink a year?

Soda causes the lack of calcium absorption, cavities, childhood obesity, and numerous other health problems. In spite of all this you might think: "Man, if it's that bad then why do we allow the machines in our cafeteria?" The answer is $$$$. Schools are so desperate for funding that we allow Pepsi or Coke to put their machines in the cafeteria because they pay us a lot of money to have them there and advertise their logo. In return, we get money to buy science lab supplies, supplies for school dances, field trip funding, new furniture, etc. Kinda messed up right??? I agree. If you want to learn more about the health benefits of green tea or unsweetened fruit juice...come see me. Bottom line: stay away from soda and any other juice containing high fructose corn syrup.

View the video above and check the following links for more information on the circulatory system. After you are finished, fill in the questions below. You may want to open a couple different tabs in your web browser.

Link 1 - Heart Contraction and Blood Flow
Link 2 - The Interior of the Heart
Link 3 - Diseases and Disorders

I told you guys! Tonight was the first big warm spring rain, which
subsequentially triggered the first major salamander migration to area
ponds and wetlands. This beautiful yellow-spotted salamander showed up
on my back porch tonight. He was pretty lethargic but once he warmed
up in my hand, I sent it on it's way. Did anyone else witness any salamanders tonight?

My high school class just finished up their homemade solar cookers.
These devices are becoming more popular in 3rd world countries as a
way to boil water without having to start a fire. We had a little
competition to see who could get their water the hottest. Dan N won
with a temp of 122 degrees F.

This spring I am attempting to make maple syrup from a sugar maple tree. I don't know much about it but I have a big maple tree in my backyard. Mrs. Shurtleff does it and she has promised to teach me. Trees spend the entire spring and summer making sugars through photosynthesis in the chloroplasts of their leaves. In the winter, the tree stores all of that sugar in the roots. In early spring, the Xylem tissue transports the sugar water (sap) BACK to the apical meristem of the branch tips to stimulate the buds and create the new year's growth. Pretty cool! People use the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) because it has the highest concentration of sugars, However, most maple species work.

If you drill a hole about an inch into the bark, it creates a leak because there is a good amount of pressure behind the bark. The sap goes to the area of least resistance, which means it drains out into my hose and into my glass carboy. When I fill it up, Mrs. Shurtleff and her husband will show me how to boil off the water so I'm left with a syrup that has a high concentration of sugar. So... stayed tuned for part two of this crazy experiment.

Thursday after school, members of the high school environmental science club traveled to the Finger Lakes Fresh hydroponic greenhouse in Ithaca to learn more about this amazing company run by Challenge Industries. This is a great local company that uses a workforce of employees with disabilities. Since we will be growing lettuce for the cafeteria in our new greenhouse this spring, we were out to learn as much as we could.
Marty Gold gave us a tour and explained the basics of hydroponics (growing vegetables in a water solution) and showed us their variety of leafy vegetables.
The first stage involves planting lettuce seeds in "rockwool" substrate.
After the seeds germinate and grow they are then cut in the rockwool and divided up and put into a foam board that floats on the water.
At the 2 week stage, the carpet of lettuce greens is looking pretty lush.
The roots soak up water and nitrogen from the water below.
After about a month in ideal growing conditions, the hydroponic greens have grown twice as fast as if grown outside and are ready to be shipped to Wegmans, Price Chopper, Tops, Greenstar, and Ludgate Farms. A couple restaurants, like Moosewood, also eagerly purchase the fresh, nutritious lettuce, basil, and pocchoi.

We were even sent home with a box full of samples. Thank you so much Marty and Finger Lakes Fresh! Be sure to vote with your dollar and support this great company next time you go shopping.

Today, Bill Foster (along with Mr. Giroux) came in to teach us a little about what trout eat in the wild and what ours will once we let them loose into Owasco Inlet. Above, 10th grader Aaron McNeil helps Brittany put the finishing touches on her caddisfly larvae. Aaron is a very skilled tyer, as you can see from his collection above, and helps teach a fly tying class at the Tompkins County Cornell Cooperative Ext. in Ithaca that Trout Unlimited puts on each winter.

Mr. Giroux showed off his skills as well. With retirement on the horizon, he should have plenty of time to devote to this great hobby.
Finally, we tried "fishing" with some of the hand-tied flies in our trout tank...without the hooks of course. They seemed to like them!

Here is a great new book aimed for students in grades 5-8 about what it's like to be a scientist and doing field research. The Frog Scientist by Pamela Turner has gotten good reviews and might be worth checking out. Click here to view it on Amazon.

Here are a couple photos from Tuesday's earthworm dissection. We have a quiz Friday on invertebrates and next week we'll start the vertebrates.