Natural World – Page 33 – Montessori Muddle

Snakes in the Prairie

geocaching-fauna-5612 — Eastern Garter Snake.

Despite choosing to traipse through the prairie while geocaching, my students’ only encounters with fauna were along and on the side of the road.

Now, I tend to be terrible at identifying animals, but only last week I ran into an eastern garter snake so I actually knew something about this meter-long specimen that was stepped on by one of my students while she was running back to the Audubon Center. I convinced the group to leave it alone since these snakes do bite — even though they’re not poisonous — and release a bad-smelling odor when threatened. And this guy was somewhat traumatized.

As for the student. She was somewhat traumatized too, but got over it soon enough. I think she was more put out by the fact that when she told her mom about it that night, her mom’s first response was, “That poor snake.”

New York Mayor on Climate

Just a few days after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg considered the role of climate change:

… The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods – something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be – given this week’s devastation – should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan – PlaNYC – has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities – local governments are taking action where national governments are not.

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House – and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to a regional cap- and-trade plan designed to reduce carbon emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels. “The benefits (of that plan) will be long- lasting and enormous – benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have ‘no regrets’ when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation,” he wrote at the time.

— Michael R. Bloomberg, 2012: A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change in Bloomberg.com.

↬ The Dish

While NPR has an article on a proposed, multi-billion dollar, offshore barrier to prevent the storm surge.

Since we’re talking about environmental economics at the moment, I played the interview, had my students read the Bloomberg excerpt, and then provoked a discussion of the value of human life with the question, “If the proposed $10 billion project could save 50 lives, would it be worth it?”

To keep the discussion focused I asked them to ignore all the other possible benefits of the barrier.

It’s a really tricky issue to deal with, but we ended up talking about how the U.S. government estimates the monetary value of human life. According to a recent New York Times article, values range from $6.1 million (Dept. of Transportation) to $9.1 million (EPA).

The business community historically has pushed for regulators to put a dollar value on life, part of a broader campaign to make agencies prove that the benefits of proposed regulations exceed the costs.

But some business groups are reconsidering the effectiveness of cost-benefit analysis as a check on regulations. The United States Chamber of Commerce is now campaigning for Congress to assert greater control over the rule-making process, reflecting a judgment that formulas may offer less reliable protection than politicians.

Some consumer groups, meanwhile, find themselves cheering the government’s results but reluctant to embrace the method. Advocates for increased regulation have long argued that cost-benefit analysis understates both the value of life and the benefits of government oversight.

— Appelbaum (2011): As U.S. Agencies Put More Value on a Life, Businesses Fret in the New York Times.

Shrimps are not for Wimps

Shrimps are not for Wimps
by Abby Reynolds

One day I walked into the science class,
I was preoccupied as I looked into the looking glass.
For Dr. Urbano had cooked up a surprise,
And after I wished I was at the car rental Enterprise.
Then I would be able to drive away,
From the disgusting horrors I saw that day.
It started with a metal tray,
With icky rubber a sickly gray.
He brought the probe and scalpel too,
My o my, Sydney turned blue!
Then a smelly smell filled the room,
Making us cough and gag all too soon.
When I saw the shrimp my stomach did flip-flop,
For the color was like that of a caramel lollipop.
I inhaled through my mouth to calm my brain,
Trying not to think how the shrimp was slain.
It helped somewhat until I saw Sydney,
Who was slicing and dicing at a kidney.
She looked up and grinned a big grin,
A smear of blood dripping down her chin.
I will kindly spare you the rest of the story,
For I fear that it gets MUCH too gory!

And there I was thinking that the shrimp dissection had gone rather well.

Melting Permafrost and a Warming Climate: Another not-so-Positive Feedback

There’s a lot of organic matter frozen into the arctic permafrost. As the arctic has been warming much faster than the rest of the planet, the permafrost soils are thawing out quite quickly. As they unfreeze, they set up a positive-feedback loop. The warming organic matter starts to decay releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating the warming.

To generate the estimates, scientists studied how permafrost-affected soils, known as Gelisols, thaw under various climate scenarios. They found that all Gelisols are not alike: some Gelisols have soil materials that are very peaty, with lots of decaying organic matter that burns easily – these will impart newly thawed nitrogen into the ecosystem and atmosphere. Other Gelisols have materials that are very nutrient rich – these will impart a lot of nitrogen into the ecosystem. All Gelisols will contribute carbon dioxide and likely some methane into the atmosphere as a result of decomposition once the permafrost thaws – and these gases will contribute to warming. What was frozen for thousands of years will enter our ecosystems and atmosphere as a new contributor.

— Harden and Lausten (2012): Not-So-Permanent Permafrost via USGS Newsroom.

Caving

They took us into a sculpted, limestone cavern they called “Twins Cave”. The entrance was large, but, for those with the predilection, there were narrower passageways that required crawling, wiggling, and a definite lack of claustrophobia.

Apart from the wonderful speleotherms, the cave was home to some charismatic fauna.

caving-owl-1877 — An owl sits amid the stalactite formations near the roof of the cave.

caving-salamander-1883 — A salamander wanders the floor, picking its way through the limestone debris.

Though I did not capture any pictures of bats, they flew around us, and we found evidence of their presence just under the cloying red mud that covered most of the cave floor.

caving-mud-1904 — Much of the cave was floored with a sticky, red, residual clay, which, in places, covered deposits of bat guano.

The limestone precipitated cave formations were quite beautiful: fluted, cathedral-organ-like stalactites;

caving-stalactites-1902 — Fluted stalactites reminiscent of Gaudi.

thin, precise straws hanging from the ceiling:

caving-1924s — Looking up at the crystal encrusted straws hanging from the ceiling.

The juxtaposition of the beauty above us and the mess beneath our feet brought into focus the idea that happiness is not an absolute thing, but rather comes from the difference between misery and joy.

(Eminence Immersion)

Journaling on the River

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Students take a break for journaling during our canoe trip on the Current River.

It was not all dark and stormy on our Outdoor Education canoe trip. The first afternoon was warm and bright; the first splashes of fall color spicing up the deep, textured greens of the lush, natural vegetation. It was so nice that, in the middle of the afternoon, we took a short break, just shy of half an hour, to reflect and journal.

journaling-5411s — A time an a place for reflection.

Our guides chose to park our boats at a beautiful bend in the river. Most of my students chose to sit in the canoes or on the sandy point-bar on the inside of the meander, but a few to be ferried across the river to a limestone cliff on the cut-bank of the curve. An enormous, flat-topped boulder had fallen into the water to make a wonderfully picturesque site for quiet reflection for two students. A third student chose to sit in a round alcove sculpted by the solution weathering of the carbonate rock itself.

journaling_4596 — A shady place to stop and think.

The cut-bank of a river’s meander tends to be deeper than the inside of the curve, because the water is forced to flow faster on the outside of the bend where it has more distance to travel. This proved to be quite convenient for my students, because it meant that the stream-bed around their boulder was deep enough that they could jump into the water after the hot work of writing while sitting in the sun. And they did.

journaling-5419 — Cool water after sitting in the sun.

(From our Eminence Immersion)