The Lab Activity
In the high school science classes today, we did an oil spill clean-up simulation lab. I had first done this lab with my GK-12 fellow Chris Wilson in the 2008 school year. I had forgotten how effective it was until today. The students here really got into it as they did in Port Aransas years ago. We "polluted" fresh water with vegetable oil and offered a variety of materials to remove the oil with the goal of reclaiming the original volume of water, unpolluted. We offered sponges, cotton balls, gauze and doggy pads as absorbents and craft sticks, pipe cleaners and nylon yarn as containment booms. We offered dish washing liquid as a dispersant. Overall we had VERY good results. The students were into it; they were focused and thinking! : )
Thanks for listening,
jill
The Bears
Last night, Tara, Carrie and I went down to the bonepile to investigate rumors of bear in the neighborhood. The rumors were true. We saw a large bear on the bonepile. He came off of the pile and moved just north and seemed to have found something interesting (maybe to eat) in the sand there. We watched him from afar in the truck for 15 minutes or so. Another bear came up onto the island from the water on the west side. As he approached, the first bear retreated. It was interesting to watch. The original bear began to move pretty quickly along a spit of land actually toward town. We decided at that point that it was a good time to return to the bunkhouse. These bears are of the first bear.
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