Nenes, Anoles and Dewlaps

Here's a guest post from our colleague Margriet Ruurs, written when she was visiting Hawaii in the winter. There she discovered that Hawaii is home to both Nene geese and anoles!

Ever heard of a Nene goose or an anole and his dewlap? I hadn’t until I traveled to Hawaii.

I love learning new things and animals never cease to amaze me. Each continent has amazing animals that are unique to that part of the world.

We’ve all heard of kangaroos and koalas in Australia. We know that North America has moose and bears and Canada geese.

Strange geese

But have you ever heard of Nene geese?

I hadn’t until I spotted this sign along the road on Moloka’i, a small, sparsely populated island. Turns out that the Nene goose is only found on the Hawaiian islands and is quite rare.

Stranger lizards

If you have been to tropical places, you may have spotted iguanas, geckos or other types of intriguing lizards.

I’m sitting in a garden in Hawaii and notice a little lizard running along the wall. I marvel at how their toe pads are equipped with tiny little hooks that allow them to run straight up the wall.

This little guy is about 12 cm long. It darts along a stone wall on little legs with a long tail and a flicking tongue. Then he stops so I can get a good look at him. But, what I think is just another little gecko, turns out to be quite something else.

Researching this cool little guy teaches me that this is a lizard, but not a gecko at all. It’s a brown, male anole.

A what?

I had never heard of anoles. While geckos and anoles are both lizards, they have evolved in different ways. Anoles didn’t appear on the scene until roughly 150 million years after the gecko. Both have adhesive toe pads that allow them to run straight up walls.

Geckos can live in dry, rocky areas while anoles prefer living among more trees. While they can live near each other, they are competitive. Anoles are active during the day, while geckos are more nocturnal.

Strangest...

But the coolest thing I notice about my little anole friend, is his dewlap.

His what?!

A dewlap is a flap of skin underneath the lizard’s chin, which he can extend and retract. It’s not an air sac, just a flag he waves when staking out his territory or when trying to attract a female. He also waves it to warn off an intruding gecko.

Watch him raise his warning flag in the sequence of photos below:

©Photos copyright: Margriet Ruurs

You can learn more about Nene geese here: http://www.ducks.org/hunting/waterfowl-id/hawaiian-nene-goose

For more details on anoles, click here: http://www.anoleannals.org/2018/03/26/anoles-versus-geckos-the-ultimate-showdown/

Margriet Ruurs is the author of Amazing Animals (Tundra Books). You can find out more about her work at her website, www.margrietruurs.com

The Great Big Boreal Forest Resource List

by L. E. Carmichael

I hear it's a long weekend? I'm not sure how to tell, really, since we will all (hopefully) be doing exactly what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks: preventing the spread of potentially deadly viruses by eating too much while watching Netflix in our jammies.

Jammies are a long-standing Easter tradition in the Carmichael family, because the Grandparents Carmichael used to give my brother and me a new pair of PJs with our baskets of chocolate and kids' books every year. And it occurred to me that once you and your kids recover from your chocolate comas, and have finished reading your shiny new copies of The Boreal Forest, you might find yourselves in need of more fun and educational things you can do at home. And thus I present:

The Great Big Boreal Forest Resource List

First - it's a video of me reading from the book!

Thank you to my publisher, Kids Can Press, for permission to keep this video available online until the end of the school year. May it bring the outdoors inside to you.

The Official Boreal Forest Activity Guide

Click here to download a free activity guide for use with your copy of The Boreal Forest. It includes suggestions for science, social studies, and language arts, and will help support a variety of elementary school curriculum outcomes. Not to mention a little creativity and fun.

But why stop there?

General Information, Online Articles, and Websites

Borealforest.org – Canadian website produced by Lakehead University

Natural Resources Canada: Boreal Forest Pages

NASA Earth Observatory: The Carbon Cycle – A detailed overview of the global carbon cycle, in which the boreal forest plays a crucial role

NASA Precipitation Education: The Water Cycle – A kid-friendly resource that includes activities and lesson plans

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species – Find the conservation status of your favourite boreal plants and animals

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Birds of the World – This is a superb resource, but note that it does require a paid subscription

Keeping the Carbon in Alaska Forests

Coronavirus Toilet Paper Hoarding “Totally Unnecessary,” What You Need to Know

A photographer who discovered baby bears dancing in a forest thought he was imagining it

Bird that looks like it died yesterday turns out to be 46,000 years old

Time to vote for Canada’s national lichen – the “spectacular” organisms that carpet the country

How deforestation drives the emergence of novel coronaviruses

What do wild animals do in a wildfire?

Totally bizarre facts about the star-nosed mole

Lesson Plans, Activities, Projects

Borealforest.org – Educational Resources Section

Canadian Geographic: The Boreal Forest “In the News”

Canadian Wildlife Federation: Boost the Boreal Forest

Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory: Boreal Forest Lesson Plans for Elementary, Junior High, and Senior High

Boreal Songbird Initiative: Provincial and Territorial Forest Facts

Nature Canada: For Children Section – Articles and a Resource Section

Forests Ontario: Community Engagement Section

NASA Precipitation Education: The Water Cycle

Utah State University: Water Cycle Lesson Plans

Scholastic: The Water Cycle Teaching Guide

California Academy of Sciences: Carbon Cycle Role Play

University of Colorado Teach Engineering: Carbon Cycles

Indigenous Peoples of the Boreal Forest

Note:

Worldwide, hundreds of Indigenous peoples live in the boreal biome. I’ve included resources for those peoples featured in my book, but I encourage you to learn about the Nations nearest you!

Canada

Gwich’in Social & Cultural Institute – a repository of Traditional Knowledge, including audio recordings of Gwich’in words and information on Gwich’in medicine plants

The Whitefeather Forest Initiative of the Pikangikum First Nation – general info and links to research involving Traditional Knowledge

Europe/Asia

Reindeer Herding – information on reindeer (caribou) and the many Indigenous peoples of Europe and Asia who herd them

Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation – This site is in Russian, but Google translate will give you a starting point for further research

Organizations

Tree Canada

Nature Canada

Forests Ontario

Ontario Nature – Boreal Forests Section

Boreal Songbird Initiative

The PEW Charitable Trusts: International Boreal Conservation Campaign

Science Books for Adults

For teenagers that want to learn more, or for adults who want more knowledge to help support their children's learning - here are some of the adult-level books I consulted while researching The Boreal Forest. Check your local library for ebook options, or see what you can find online!

Bannick, Paul (2008) The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America’s Most Iconic Birds. Seattle, WA: The Mountaineers Books.

Bondrup-Nielsen, Soren (2009) A Sound Like Water Dripping: In Search of the Boreal Owl. Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press.

Chang, Mingteh (2013) Forest Hydrology: An Introduction to Water and Forests. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Crawford, R.M.M. (2013) Tundra-Taiga Biology: Human, Plant, and Animal Survival in the Arctic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gawthrop, Daniel (1999) Vanishing Halo: Saving the Boreal Forest. Vancouver, BC: Greystone Books.

Lynch, Wayne. (2001) The Great Northern Kingdom: Life in the Boreal Forest. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

Do you know of additional boreal resources? Drop them in the comments for others to explore!

How You Doing?

By Raymond Nakamura

I hope you are as well as can be expected under the circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us into a new world. Dealing with the pandemic has spread beyond an issue of science communication to sharing an historic experience.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the threat and the many impacts of self-isolating, other posts on this blog have already shared some helpful information. Increasingly, the importance of finding common ground with your audience is being recognized as an important part of science communication. This post is more about sharing my experiences with some little comics I have been posting online, as my way to stay connected with friends and perhaps offer some encouragement.

Many people seem to be working from home for the first time. As a freelancer, intermingling work work and house work is normal, other than having to avoid people who usually aren’t there while I’m walking my dog.

What has changed for me has been the act of buying groceries. Deliveries of groceries have skyrocketed, but to leave that service to those more desperately in need, I have gone in person, only to realize how things have changed.

Even before this situation, I did not get out much, but have been meeting with my writing group every Monday for the past twenty years. Recently, we did our first videoconference. It worked out quite smoothly, but of course we missed the snacks and hugs.

We are still learning about the effects of this novel coronavirus, but in my case, just the possibility of it seems to have affected my senses.

It does seem that the reduced traffic and general mayhem makes it easier to hear the birds when I go out to walk my dog.

If you can, get outside a little without your devices and maybe it will help your frame of mind. Take care.

For those of you interested, I drew these cartoons on an iPad with an Apple pencil, using an app called Tayasui Sketches.

Testing for COVID-19

By Yolanda Ridge

It’s hard to write about the science of COVID-19 right now because our understanding of the virus is still evolving. But it’s also hard to think about anything else.

One thing everyone wants to know is how and when this pandemic will end. In the best-case scenario, a vaccine becomes available and life goes on as normal. The problem is that it will take at least a year – even with international cooperation, dedication and determination – to develop, test, and then distribute the vaccine worldwide.

To find out more about viruses and vaccines, click on this link to read Virus VS Bacteria – Know Your Enemy on Sci/Why, written by our own Adrienne Montgomerie.

In the meantime, everyone will have to stay at home unless we can find a way to quickly and accurately identity who has the virus and who doesn’t. Unfortunately, testing for COVID-19 has been difficult.

There are two main steps to testing a person to see if they’ve been infected with COVID-19.

Step One: Collect the Sample

The sample must be collected by someone wearing a mask that can protect them from getting infected. It’s done with a nasopharyngeal swab, which is basically a long cotton swab that goes into the nose. 

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Unfortunately, both face masks and swabs have been in short supply due to huge demand and manufacturing disruptions. One of the largest makers of nasopharyngeal swabs is in Lombardy, Italy where a lot of people are affected with COVID-19.

Step Two: Test the Sample

Getting enough lab space to do the testing has been difficult as well, since the lab has to be specially designed so the virus won’t spread. The test itself requires specific chemicals and machines, which have also been in short supply.

To find out whether there’s any COVID-19 virus in the sample, scientists look for its RNA. Like DNA in humans, RNA is a set of instructions that makes each type of virus unique. To cause an infection, the COVID-19 virus injects this genetic material into a human cell (it really likes lung cells) along with instructions on how to make copies of it. This allows the RNA to be copied over and over again until the cell dies. Then all those copies of RNA are released in the form of new COVID-19 viruses that can attack other cells.

To find out more, click on this link to watch The Coronavirus Explained & What You Should Do on Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.

If someone has the COVID-19 virus, there will be pieces of its RNA in the sample collected during step one. The most common way to test a sample for viral RNA is by something called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It sounds complicated but PCR is really just way of making more RNA using the virus’s genetic material as a template – not that different to what the virus does itself when it causes an infection. If the virus is in the sample, PCR will produce enough RNA to been seen using a special microscope.

Artist's image of DNA, from the National Institute of Health

Scientists all over the world are trying to find different ways of making step two faster and more efficient. One way is to use CRISPR, a gene editing tool that works like the find and replace function in a word document to change DNA in ways that have never been possible before. With cool names like SHERLOCK and DETECTR, these tests could get results in as little as 5 to 10 minutes by a process that may eventually be used to not only detect the virus but destroy its genetic material as well.

My book, CRISPR: A Powerful Way to Change DNA, comes out this fall from Annick Press. It will go to press before we know how much CRISPR will be used in the fight against COVID-19.

It’s exciting to think about how new technologies might stop future viruses through testing, treating and even developing vaccines. But the current pandemic is teaching us that the supply of basic stuff - masks, swabs, lab space and equipment – is really the most important thing of all.

Epidemics, Smallpox, and William Osler

By Gillian O'Reilly

These days, our minds are on epidemics (the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time) and pandemics (disease epidemics that have spread across large regions or worldwide).
 
One of my current projects is a book about the brilliant Canadian diagnostician and medical
educator Dr. William (Willie) Osler. Born in 1849 when people still thought diseases were
caused by bad air, Osler lived through the huge changes brought about by the discovery of
germs. There are several stories of his encounters with smallpox during his career.

Photo of William Osler from 1881 used with permission

of the Osler Library for the History of Medicine

In the nineteenth century, smallpox was a terrifying disease, often fatal. Survivors were left with bad scarring or blindness. Symptoms were fever, a rash, and characteristic pustules all over the body. Once diagnosed, smallpox patients had to be quickly isolated from other patients in a separate ward or hospital.
 
Vaccinations, successfully tested in 1796, had replaced variolation (an earlier form of inoculation used in Asia and Africa for centuries). Over the nineteenth century, widespread vaccination, sometimes mandated by law, had reduced the number of infections and deaths, but there were still regular outbreaks where vaccination rates were low.

In the spring of 1872 after his final year of medical school, Willie worked briefly at a hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. There he encountered a rare case of smallpox and drove the dying patient to mayor’s home to force the authorities to provide proper isolated accommodation for the man.
 

Quarantine poster image used with permission 

of the Osler Library for the History of Medicine

 
Montreal was one part of Canada where vaccination rates were low. Willie was teaching at McGill University during the smallpox epidemic of 1875-1876 and he took time to work in Montreal’s smallpox hospital, earning $600. Although he had been vaccinated (like all his siblings), he caught a mild case of the disease.
 
In those days, medical students learned mostly from lectures, rarely seeing patients or working in a lab. One of Willie’s innovations as a teacher was to make sure that his students had microscopes, so they could see and understand the diseases they were studying. The $600 he earned went to pay for microscopes.
 
Willie was one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. When it opened in the fall of 1893, he at last had the medical school he wanted – a place where learning, hospital work and research were intertwined and where students could learn by doing. Willie led a weekly general clinic at the hospital, where he and students would see patients. 

By then, some diseases had become rare enough that many doctors and students had trouble diagnosing them. One resident proudly displayed what he thought was an interesting case of chicken pox to Osler and 30 or 40 students and doctors. When he threw back the sheet, a horrified Willie exclaimed, “My God, Futcher, don’t you know smallpox when you see it?” The patient was quickly isolated, the ward quarantined for six weeks and the students and staff hurriedly vaccinated.

In 1980, smallpox became the only human disease to be declared eradicated, thanks to a worldwide vaccination program in the 20th century.

More on William Osler and the history of medicine can be found at The Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill  https://www.mcgill.ca/library/branches/osler

The Osler Library Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/oslerlibrary/  has a good drawing of emergency smallpox vaccinations being performed on American-bound trains from Montreal.

International Forest Day Twitter Party!

Saturday is UN International Day of Forests!

As Sci/Why readers might know, my newest children's science book, The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, will be published on April 7, 2020. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of my in-person book tour events have been cancelled through early May. But that doesn't mean we can't celebrate - or help our kids learn at home! And so...
Here's everything you need to know about my International Day of Forests Twitter Party!

When it is?

Saturday, March 21, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time.

Do I have to have a Twitter account?

Nope! Twitter is 100% public and free. You can view all of the content I will be posting - fun facts, cute photos, links to resources - on my Twitter page:

Lindsey's Twitter Feed

Note, you will need a Twitter account to enter the giveaway. More on that below.

Will any other authors be there?

I am so please to announce that kid lit creators Darren Lebeuf and Carmen Oliver will be special guests at this event! You can follow all of their posts here:

Darren's Twitter Feed

Carmen's Twitter Feed

I'm on Twitter: how can I participate? 

Like, tweet, comment, retweet! The more the merrier.

#IntlForestDay is the official hashtag for the UN event. You can also email forest-themed photos to IDF@fao.org for possible inclusion in the UN's official Day of Forests gallery.

And, of course, you can enter to win the giveaway!

How can I enter to win the exclusive Day of Forests Prize Pack?

Contest Begins: March 21, 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Contest Ends: March 21, 4:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Contest Rules:

• One prize pack will be awarded, including 1 copy each of:
  • The Boreal Forest, by L. E. Carmichael, illustrations by Josée Bisaillon
  • My Forest is Green, by Darren LeBeuf, illustrations by Ashley Barron
  • Nature All Around: Trees, by Pamela Hickman, illustrations by Carolyn Gavin
  • The Busy Beaver, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland
  • A Voice for the Spirit Bears, by Carmen Oliver, illustrated by Katy Dockrill
• There are two ways to enter!
  • ONE entry for each account that retweets the opening contest post, which will appear on Lindsey's feed at 1:00PM
  • ONE entry for each account that tweets using #KCPKidsLoveTrees
• Entries must be received during the contest period
• Canadian and US shipping addresses only
• No purchase necessary
• Note: Creation of multiple accounts for the purpose of entering a contest is a violation of Twitter Rules – anyone found to be using multiple accounts will be disqualified.

Note, the Day of Forests Twitter Party prize pack is different than the forest-themed giveaway I'm running on my website - it's just for people who participate in the Twitter event. If you don't want to be on Twitter, check out Forest Fridays posts on my blog for other ways to win! Those posts are also a great source of homeschooling content, FYI.

Remember, you can't catch a virus from Twitter - this is the perfect bookish/educational activity for anyone in self-isolation or who's social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope to see you there!

Free Homeschooling Resources for Isolating Families

Hey, people who read Sci/Why website! We've got new resources added to this post.

With the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all the schools, libraries and museums are closed for most of our readers. Here are some free online resources that will be useful for families who are doing some homeschooling, or just want to have interesting things to do. If you have more free online resources to recommend, please share them in the comments below.

Due to the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus, Binogi will open up its content to all Canadian teachers, students, and parents to provide remote teaching and learning throughout spring 2020. This platform looks terrific! We learned about it from this article at Sooke Pocket News. The article explains more about Binogi and their learning program, with links to Binogi's website, so check it out.

There's a page of resources for educators at the website for Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory, which you can find at this link.

Remember, if you're a family with kids home from school, you might have no need to set up formal homeschooling lessons! It's probably best to start with a wander through these amazing books and videos, to find what is interesting for you. Maybe you will read through an entire unit and learn a formal lesson, or maybe you'll find that it's animal webcams that make your family happy about science. There's no wrong answer.

Our own LE Carmichael has just launched a new book, The Boreal Forest. Check out our Sci/Why blog at this link for the post she wrote about her event  If you're missing the public library or bookstore, she says: "Click over to Youtube to enjoy this video of me reading from The Boreal Forest on #IntlForestDay" 
Here's the link for that reading! 

Here are some great comments on writing about science for young people, from Sci/Why's own Joan Marie Galat, who wrote on this topic for Edmonton Public Library. Click here for a link to read what she and several other Canadian writers have to say about researching and writing our books!

Now that we're all practising social distancing, we can't go to libraries or museums. Though many of us can go for a walk to a park or beach or hiking trail, some people don't have that option for a field trip. Here's a link found by Sci/Why's own Margriet Ruurs, which leads to over THIRTY virtual field trips you can take on a computer. You and your kids can visit animal webcams, the Louvre and other museums, or even Mars! Just click on this link:
https://abdodigital.com/?tk=414F33301B8E136DEE3F0A93BF1795E1

If you're into the space program or astronomy, the NASA website at http://nasa.gov will lead you to an amazing amount of science and space program resources you can read, download, and more. NASA also has a Kids' Club (click here for the link) with games, stories, calendars, and more.

Remember that Canada's National Film Board has over 400 Canadian films in English and in French available for anyone to watch online at http://nfb.ca .

If you or your child are a high school student in Canada, do not panic about school credits for graduation! Every province in Canada is working on this issue, and there will be a way to ensure students can finish school credits. E-mail your school and your province's Ministry of Education to learn what is being done in your area.

There is particularly good news from Alberta on this matter, from Alberta Distance Learning Centre which has resources used by many Canadians across the country and around the world. Their website is http://adlc.ca and they have 300 courses being used, 200 of which are online. They advise other distance learning programs nationally. They are used to hearing from parents and school boards.
Click here for a link to an article by CBC News about this amazing distance learning centre, and what they're doing to help students who had not planned to need to study at home.

I'll add right now the particularly bad news that the Alberta government had JUST announced they were reducing funding this year for the Alberta Distance Learning Centre and CANCELLING it entirely. If you're living in Alberta, let your government know what you think of cancelling this excellent and cost-effective education program, which is a major employer for the town of Barrhead as well as employing many teachers and tutors who work online.

Scholastic Books is promoting their Learn At Home website (click here for the link) which has learning content for children from pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6. There are five days' worth of materials, with more on the way.

Abdo Digital Publishing has sent out word that they are making their digital library FREE for people to download and use from their website, http://abdodigital.com. This American publisher has resources including books in Spanish as well as English.
They have both an Elementary Digital Bookshelf for pre-Kindergarten thru Grade 8 at this link
https://abdodigital.com/?tk=414F33301B8E136DEE3F0A93BF1795E1
and a Secondary Digital Bookshelf for Grades 5 through 12 at this link
https://abdodigital.com/?tk=840BC558E6676AB1F4C9FA29D8EC6D69 

As their note today said:

To help stop the spread of COVID-19, schools and libraries are closing across the country. ABDO wants to ensure that readers everywhere continue to have the opportunity to learn and grow during this unprecedented event. Our digital products are available for free now through June 2020.