Leaf Litter Frogs

Can you name an animal that plays dead? You probably said opossum, and you're correct. But have you ever heard that a frog plays dead? They do, the leaf litter frog plays dead to protect themselves from predators. The leaf litter frog plays dead by flipping on their back, shutting their eyes, and throw their arms and legs all the way back. They stay on their backs for about two minutes. This article inspired me to write about frogs playing dead. In my science class we were studying frogs, that is why I chose this topic. Click here to read the article I read. (by Ed)

Soft vs Hard Shell Maine Lobsters

Many lobsters are affected by the ocean waters. Water temperature plays a role in lobsters' movement because when it is cold, lobsters do not move much to feed. In 2012 and 2013 the ocean was warmer because of mild winters. There were a lot of lobsters and they shed their shells early in this season because of the warmer water. This means they molted their shells. Young lobsters molt five times a year and older lobsters molt once a year. Soft shell lobsters are lower in price. The winters of 2014 and 2015 were very cold. The ocean water was very cold and the lobster prices went up because the shells were hard. Lobsterman were making more money in 2014 and 2015. Weather impacts Maine lobsters. I chose this topic because I wanted to learn more about lobsters.

                                          red bands is soft shell and  blue bands is hard shell

Even though the picture does not show a difference in appearance, the soft shell lobster has a paper thin shell. It weighs less. (by Tim)

Source: www.pressherald.com/2012/06/19/whats-in-a-name-its-soft-shell

South Carolina Ant Raft

In South Carolina there was recently a flood and in order to save themselves the fire ants built an ant raft. When the water starts to flood, worker ants link together with their legs and mouths to form the base of the raft. The process can take less than two minutes. Then the ants move the queen and larvae on to the center of the raft where they can stay safe and dry. The ant raft can survive for several weeks if not eaten by fish and other sea creatures first. If too many of the ants get eaten the raft will collapse and the ants will not survive. Also if the ants do not reach land they will not survive. I chose this topic because I thought it was really interesting to see how that species survives. (by Jesse)

Please click here to watch a video about the ant raft. 

Going Bananas!

I was talking with my babysitter, and we thought about many different things to write about for my blog post, and then she remembered a podcast she listened to that talked about the commonly eaten cavendish banana, and how this particular type of banana may be going extinct because of a disease called the Panama disease. The cavendish banana was actually chosen to be our main banana, because it was thought to actually be resistant to the Panama disease. Now, this fungus hasn't hit any of the Americas yet but it is on its way and it's only a matter of possibly 5-10 years until it could maybe even wipe out the cavendish species itself. There are only two ways to figure out this problem. We either find a different species that we can adjust to, meaning we adjust to a different taste, size, and possibly color of banana, or we find a cure for the Panama disease. Frankly I don't think we can find a cure seeing that they have been trying for over five years.

This sounds pretty bad right? Well it gets worse. There are over 1,000 different types of bananas around the world. At the moment though there is no replacement for the cavendish banana because out of the 1,000s of bananas, we would have to find a better way to ship them, and a faster way or else the banana would go bad on it's trip, and become very bruised. The cavendish particularly though, is the only banana species that is suited for shipment because of its tough skin. The banana also ripens at the correct rate for shipping well.

Will we be saying goodbye to our most beloved fruit?

Click here and here to listen to two different podcasts about this topic. (by Cat)

The Slippery and Slimy Snail

Humans in France eat snails. The dish is called Escargot (es-cargo because you don't pronounce the t). Sometimes it is served in fancy restaurants in the U.S.A and other places in the world. Sometimes items in facial creams are made by snails.  Some of the different snails are the apple snail, Malaysian trumpet snail, Sulawesi snail, and the pond snail (the one we caught). Snails are very slow and live basically everywhere in the world! This topic was important to me because it is not a common topic. This is related to science because snails are living animals, and we are working on living animals/plants. We collected snails at the pond and I thought that I should give a chance to snails so that caused me to pick snails for the Vital Signs project. Have you ever seen a larger sized snail? Here is the picture of the pond snail (taken by Lolie). Click here to go toa website to learn more facts about snails. (by Greta)

Source: http://www.planetinverts.com/snail_species.html

The day we went to the pond at Evergreen Cemetery, we were very successful in our findings. We set many records, one being catching the most fish. The previous record was four or five but this year we caught many more than that. We caught seven or eight fish! Many were small, three quarters of an inch or less, but we did catch a fish that was about one and a quarter inches! We found many snails, frogs, insects, and more. My group, Tim, Jake, and I, caught a frog and named it Fred. From then on all the labs that we did we named our bugs, frogs, fish, snails or whatever we did a lab on. My group named them Fred or Fred junior and there was even a Fred senior. The first lab we did was our frog lab. My group tried to find Fred although there happened to be six or seven other frogs that looked exactly like Fred. My second lab was a predaceous diving beetle of some kind and we named him Fred junior. My third and final lab was of a bridle shiner, which is a fish. It was about three quarters of an inch and we named it Fred senior. Everyone's labs in sixth grade will be used to upload the information about the organisms to a website called Vital Signs. It's run by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Experts at the gulf of Maine research institute will be in touch with us about what we found. We are considered to be citizen scientists but our answers are very helpful to the experts. And they now can save a field trip to the Evergreen Cemetery ponds because we asked the question for them, what lives in the Evergreen Cemetery ponds! (by Henry W.)

First Lab

Yesterday our science class did our first lab. We had recently gone to the Evergreen Cemetery to collect organisms and plants so that we could look at and study them. We got to take a frog out of the tank and put it in a smaller one. so that we could look at it more closely. Then we looked very closely at it and drew it. After that we wrote five observations about what it looked like. The third step was to take a clear focused picture with our iPads. Finally we looked in a field guide to figure out what kind of frog our table was looking at.The frog at our table was a bullfrog. I chose this topic because I had a lot of fun doing this lab. (by Julia W)

      

The Frogs

In science class we have been studying pond ecology, we went to a pond and collected all sorts of life including frogs, insects, tadpoles, fish and lots of other specimens.

After we got back to school we put all the organisms into a tank. We observed them and made sketches of the frogs.

Once we had finished the sketches we had to take scientific photos of the frogs and then write a few descriptive sentences on the frog we were observing. After that we had to identify the kind of frog we were sketching, observing and taking pictures of. Mine was the green frog.

Our class was told that we would be able to look at the different animals under a microscope.

I think it will be really fun to do that and really fascinating as well.

I really wanted to write about this topic because I thought it was really fun going to the pond to collect the animals and then take them back to the classroom to study and write about.

My one question is did anyone else get a different frog other than the green frog?

I really want to know because I think all the frogs in the tank are green frogs. (By Nathan)