We weren’t looking for them at the time, and later when we were looking for them we didn’t find them, but on our trip back to the GCRL-MEC a dolphin decided it wanted to play in our boat’s wake.
It would jump through the face of the bow wave. Usually horizontally, but vertically once or twice.
Playing.
Dolphins usually travel in pods of up to a dozen or so individuals. This one, however, was alone. We’d seen it earlier, while we were walking on the beach and picking up trash. The dolphin may have been playing or eating, but it was certainly scaring the small fish. A couple birds took advantage of this to make their own catches, with near vertical dives into the gently rolling waters of the sound.
It was wonderful to observe.
Bird caught in the middle of a dive, just before it splashed into the water.
As we waded through the Mississippi Sound, doing the Sting Ray Shuffle, sampling for benthic fauna, we came across these two waterspouts. Our guide, Stephanie, from the Gulf Coast Research Lab’s Marine Education Center, said they’re not that common.
Jose Duarte has an excellent Homemade Visualization Toolkit. It’s wonderfully innovative, and a perfect addition to the Montessori classroom. And you should also be able to find all the necessary pieces in a typical classroom.
Bullets flying past my face,
After the enemy like a chase.
Grenades landing right beside me,
I’ve now deployed my RC-XD.
Staying camouflaged on my hands and knees,
LOOKOUT, SNIPERS IN THE TREES!
A silenced weapon keeps me stealthy,
Kill the enemy, with my Valkyrie.
Dolphin dive onto the ground,
My magazine is almost out of rounds.
I get shot with a pistol,
In the back of the head.
My teammate tries to revive me,
But it’s too late, I’m already dead.
The BBC has an excellent article on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) launched on the second to last shuttle flight to investigate the origins of the universe. NASA’s page is giving regular updates.
What’s nice is that the basic physics of magnetic spectrometers, where magnets are used to deflect the motion of charged particles, should be accessible to middle school students once they get into electricity and magnetism.
Transition Radiation Detector determines highest-energy particle velocities Silicon Trackers follow particle paths; how they bend reveals their charge Permanent Magnet is core component of AMS and makes particles curve Time-of-flight Counters determine lowest-energy particle velocities Star Trackers scan star fields to establish AMS’s orientation in space Cerenkov Detector makes accurate velocity measurements of fast particles Electromagnetic Calorimeter measures energy of impacting particles Anti-coincidence Counter filters signal from unwanted side particles
‘Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
— Alfred Housman (1896): from A Shropshire Lad viaUSCC.
My students just presented their Individual Research Projects (IRPs) to their peers and their parents, and, I have to say, they did quite a good job.
Image by Ryan W.
They’re called IRPs, but while they are independent projects, they actually don’t all have to be research. This year we had a number of research papers, a few experiments, a short story, and computer program. The last two were by graduating eight graders, who I like to encourage to do something different that aligns with their interests: one wants to be a writer, while the other is really interested in programming.
Now you’re thinking, “That family is mean!” You could say that, but that’s not why we do it.
– From “Beverly” by P.Z.
Graph by Ben T.
It helped that it was a friendly audience who’d just been fed (food always helps), but it was nice to see how confident they were, and, as one parent remarked to me, how much progress they make from year to year. Even my shyest student had everyone laughing with her short story.
Even better still, was the fact that although I did not have the time to review all the presentations in great detail (students have to write a report first, which tends to be the focus of my reviews), the peer-review process, and the experience they’ve had doing presentations all year, really paid off.
And on average, an increase of .100 OPS adds 2 million to the player’s salary. So players on steroids on average get $12,512,630 more throughout their career.
-Michael F. in ” ‘roids”
Tomorrow is graduation, which I always find to be anticlimactic; after all, it’s the work that important and interesting, not so much the diploma at the end. These excellent presentations however, were a great way to cap off the year.
