Our Tadpole / Froglet

Photo by Damon Young

10/23/14 ENWYC

Photos by Damon Young
 

Golddiggers, Generals, & Tightrope Walkers - August 21, 2014

Remember Bill Witherspoon, our Geologist who came and visited with ENWYC this summer helping us to learn about Georgia’s rocks and geology?

Well, Bill is retiring this month and FSC is having his retirement celebration on Thursday night. FSC will be officially closed to the public for continued maintenance of equipment but will be unofficially open for Bill’s retirement party and you are invited!  

Bill’s talk will be at 7:00, (The 6:00 event is just a staff reception for Bill) but you can come at our usual time of 6:30 if you like and visit the FSC museum area. I will be there and looking for you, so if you want to bring some natural samples in, I will be happy to look at them with you, but please keep them small (no large containers with snakes, turtles, etc.). Then we can all enjoy Bills slideshow at 7:00. We can resume our Thursday evenings of ENWYC on August 28th.

Paleontologist visits ENWYC - 06/26/14

Nan Hubner, FSC Paleontologist, was our special guest tonight.  She talked about fossils and we had a chance to search through some owl pellets.

Photos coming soon.

Recap for 05/22/14

Today's special show and tell included...

• a large female yellowbelly pond slider
• some slugs
• some ants (queen, workers, winged drones, and warrior ants)
• a beetle
• a “frogpole” (an almost frog tadpole)
• an “Ebony Jewelwing”  and one other small Damselfly.

Also, one of the children caught a house centipede in the classroom and we looked at his fangs under the microscope.  Then we went out to the water garden and looked for dragonflies to compare with the damselflies I brought in. We found a green darner dragonfly at the pond. It is called a green darner but the abdomen is actually blue. However, it’s eyes and thorax are green. 

Rock Day With Bill Witherspoon 4/24/14

During class we had several exciting specimens brought in on top of Bill Witherspoon coming in and talking all about rocks!

Barbra brought in a leech that we suspect got into her pond via bird legs, perhaps a great blue heron that is a common visitor to her house, or via turtles. She also brought in quite a sizeable crawfish. Jesse brought in what Mr. Al thought was a banded water snake. Ian brought in a house centipede.

Bill had a really fun activity that taught us about the most common rocks you might find around out region. He also took us on a rock walk outside to show us the different exhibits that we often walk past on the way into ENWYC. Check out the pictures!!

Looking at the leech and crawfish. 

More examination.

Talking about how to crawfish propel themselves through the water.  

Looking at the house centipede. 

Jesse and his water snake.

An up close look. 

From left to right, top then bottom row: granite, gneiss, quartz, amphibolite, and schist.

Bill talking about his book, "Roadside Ecology of Georgia."

Taking a rock tour outside!

April and May ENWYC dates

The next class is Thursday, April 3, 2014.  There will be no class on Thursday, April 10 as the center will be closed for spring break. 

Future dates for ENWYC include April 17 and 24 and May 1, 8, 15, and 22.

Al is working with Dr. Bill Witherspoon to arrange a special night of fun.  Dr. Witherspoon is an instructor at Fernbank Science Center.  He specializes in geology.  This will be the night to bring in your rocks and minerals for identification.  As soon as the date is finalized, we will let you know.

 

Recap of March 27 - "Science at the Center"

On March 27, ENWYC attended the "Science at the Center".  Some of the highlights of the night included identifying rocks in the treasure chest, checking out plankton fossils, creating the life cycle of a monarch butterfly, learning about levitation, creating Bradford Pear snow, and trying our hand at flight simulation.  It was great fun.

Recap of March 20, 2014

We took a nature walk looking for signs of spring.

Chickweed

Dogwood leaves emerging

Bedstraw

The bedstraw was great fun.  We had the opportunity to throw it at each other and watch it stick to our clothing.  Bedstraw can be used to help hold the bed material in place.  It is too limp to make a whole bed.

Polypore mushroom
Turkey tail mushroom

Beech tree leaves



Millipede

Clover

Shepherd's purse
(in the mustard family)
  

For show and tell, we had a treasure chest full of rocks and minerals...

 

Malachite with garnet

Flashlight rock

 

 

 

...and an albino checkered garden snake

 

Remaining March classes and Atlanta Science Festival

This Thursday, March 20, is ENWYC.  Last week’s class was very busy.  We had lots of show and tell items from beaver sticks, blue pine cones, and sweet gum balls to a cocoon, pupa, and gall.  One of the highlights of the night was the musk turtle.  One child brought in some jelly-eared fungus that was a nice segue to viewing our fungi cultures under the microscope.  It should be interesting to see what this week’s class will bring. 

On Thursday, March, 27, there will be a special event going on at the Fernbank Science Center.  The event is “Science at the Center”.  It runs from 6 – 8 pm.  Our ENWYC group will meet that night and explore the different activities around the center from robotics to chemistry to the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly and more.  This event is part of the Atlanta Science Festival. 

The Fernbank Science Center will also be hosting another festival event on Saturday, March 22, 2014 from Noon – 3 pm.  The event is called Nano Day.  The Atlanta Science Festival runs from March 22 – March 29, 2014.  Each day, there are lots of events all around the city.  Most of the events are free.  Some require pre-registration.  For a complete listing, go to http://atlantasciencefestival.org/. 

The festival culminates in an Exploration Expo at Centennial Olympic Park.  The Exploration Expo is on Saturday, March 29, 2014 from 11 am – 4 pm.  There will be more than 100 interactive science booths and shows.  Admission is free.  In case of inclement weather, check the website for any last minute changes such as relocation to the Georgia World Congress Center.

Recap of March 13, 2014

Class was held in the bird room instead of the microscope lab.  We had all sorts of beautiful birds looking down on us.


 
 

• Beaver stick
• from a Hackberry tree
• has berries that are sweet and crunchy
• also called a Sugarberry
• the rings of the branch were counted
• it was around 11 or 12 years old

 

• check out the bite marks

 

 

• Note: On 2/27/14, we looked at Hackberry petiole gall psyllid.  

• Quartz

• Starfish

 

• Cocoon from a Cecropia moth
• pull fibers out and spin
• moth incorporated the leaf and spun webbing inside

• Dead limb with fungus and lichen
• Jelly-eared fungus

• gelatinous
• Chinese use it in soups
• it was dry so we rehydrated it

• Lichen

• makes it own food
• algae and fungi fused together
• Bagworm pupa
• Oak apple gall
• from a wasp
• hole shows where the wasp came out

• Long branch pine tree with blue pine cones

Shaking a bit of pollen dust

• Musk turtle
• small
• hinged plate on bottom
• male
• short tail before where the poop comes out
• 2 stripes on side of head
• no teeth
• has hard beak
• squirts out a musk scent when aggravated
• should have algae on it but it doesn't
• older
• found near Stone Mountain; it is going to be returned to its habitat

 

Watch out for that bite!

 

• Sweet gum balls
• knocked the sweet gum balls to see what lived inside
• found spring tails and spiders

• Cultures
• Last week, the children put leaves and sticks and things in the prepared cultures
• This week, we checked out the fungus that grew.