Turtles and Instinct

Arribada in Ostional 7/2016
Arribada in Ostional 7/2016

A few turtle facts.  Turtles are reptiles with a small brain.  They nearly impossible to train and therefore have little “learnt” behaviors.  During the last part of the quarter moon turtles start to arrive to lay eggs.  A few at first, but at it’s height there will be thousands at a time in one location.  One square meter of beach at Ostional will have as many as 16 nests. Generally, the turtles come in at the dark of night, and will pick a location close to the shore, mid beach, or high near the vegetation line.  They then start to dig with their back flippers.  The alternate, they jam their flipper down straight, curl it to scoop sand, then place it outside the hole, then brush it away.  This will repeat until a maximum depth is found.  She then will place both back flippers over the hole and start to lay.  Eggs come out, 1,2,3, and sometimes 4 at a time falling into the hole.  The species I observed (Olive Ridley) laid between 80 and 110 (The max number I observed).  When done, she fills the hold, then rocks her shell back and forth to pat down the sand, then move around to camouflage the nest.  They then return to ocean, where they live a solitary life.  A mother may return 2-3 times a year to lay eggs.

The scooping of sand out is a very complex behavior.  It is used nowhere else in their natural life.  Moreover, they are not raised by a parent, so turtles are on their own from day 1 until they lay eggs again.  How do they know how to do this?  There is no Lamaze class for expectant turtle mothers, and there is no evidence of communication.  If missing a flipper, the turtle will still attempt to dig.  She will continue to cover and camouflage the next if the eggs were taken while laying — essentially covering an empty nest.  In the the words of a Phd student I met there (Christina), they are “pre programmed” to do this activity.  It is an “instinctual activity” she said.

To me this falls short.  Where did the instinct come from?  Evolution says that over millennia, turtles that did not bury eggs in the sand died out, thus building a genetic memory to dig and camouflage.  However, there must have a been a group that did it first, so how did they figure it out?  Going back to the same beach where they were born is understandable to me (Although I wonder what would happen if eggs were transplanted to another beach).  Religious folk would call this “instinct” programmed by a creator.   It seems mysterious and wondrous to me!

A couple of quick notes about what pictures don’t show.  The beach is littered with broken shells from millions of hatching.  There are more turtle shells than sea shells.  Vultures, dogs, and crabs are plentiful, predating on newly deposited shells.  At night we would patrol the beach.  Measure and count turtles, their eggs, nest depth, and location.  During the morning we would do  a census.  One morning I did census prior to the arribada and found 36 exits from the ocean and only 5 nests remained in tact.  The rest were poached by people to sell turtle eggs on the black market, by dogs to eat, or were false exists where the turtle was unsuccessful in making a nest or was frightened off.

Some of my favorite non visual memories of this event was 1) The labored breathing of the turtle while laying eggs.  2) The group of people supporting turtle.  At times we would sit there quietly at 2 in the morning, under the milky way, listening to the waves and turtle, until our measurements were done.  Earlier in the evening 8-12 shifts are crowded with people and frequently with obnoxious people.  3) One job was little pick up, which entailed removing trash, moving large wood to the vegetation line, and filling in holes so turtles don’t get stuck.  It felt great, after doing this, to then see 15 turtles use the section of the beach that I cleared.

 

Hikes

Through Hike:

  • John Muir Trail (283 Miles, 3 weeks) – Horseshoe Meadows – Cottonwood Pass – Happy Isles

Arenal National Park (Costa Rica)

  • Cerro Chato (6.5 miles 4 hours)

Briones Regional Park (Moraga, CA)

  • Old Briones Rd – Briones Crest Trail – Abrigo (5 miles 150 minutes)

China Camp State Park

Chugach National Forest

  • Winner Creek Trail, ~2-3 miles, Hand Tram, with 3 and 8 yr old.
  • 3 mile trek up to glacier from back of Willawaw campground (Stay on left of creek as right side becomes impassable near top)
  • 3 mile portage valley hike around small ponds near Willawaw with 3 and 8 yr old.  Saw Moose, salmon, and waterfowl.

Covacado/Cabo Matapalo – Costa Rica

  • Matina’s to Cabo Matapalo beach and back + Rio Carbonero (6 miles – 6 hours)
  • Rio Carbonero 1 mile
  • Playa Cabo Matapolo – Gulfo Dule Trail – Trogon Trail – Tropical Paridise Trail (4 miles 2 hours)

Curi Concha – Monteverde Costa Rica

  • 2.5 miles through various reserve trails

Grand Canyon National Park

Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve

  • Self Guided Tour (2.75 miles 1 hour)

Indian Canyons (Palm Springs California)

  • Murray Canyon Trail –> Colman Trail (1.5 miles)
  • Palm Canyon Trail –> East Fork Trail (~5 miles)

Inyo National Forest

Kenai Fjords National Park

Lake Chabot Regional Park

  • Puma Point – Hucks Trail – Honker Bay – Towhee – Puma Point (3.25 miles w/ 1-3 graders)
  • Jackson Grade – Brandon – Cottontail – Redtail – Brandon – Towhee – Live Oak – East Shore – West Shore – Golden Rod (11.4 miles 4 hours)
  • Golden Rod – Columbine – Honker Bay – Live Oak – Towhee – Red Tail – Deer Canyon – Brandon – Jackson Grade (8.6 miles 3.5 hours)

Lassen National Park

  • Bumpass Hell (3miles w/9 and 4 yrold with pulled achilles and foot boot)
  • Echo Lake (just to junction 3 miles with pulled achilles and foot boot) from summit lake north

Las Trampas Regional Park

  • Elderberry – Rocky Ridge – Bollinger Creek – Trampas Ridge – Coudoroy – Madrone – Virgil Williams – Del Amigo – Sulpher Springs – Trapline -Chamise (14  miles – 6hours Lots of elevation changes)
  • Elderberry – Devils Hole – Sycamore – Rocky Ridge – Bollinger Creek – Trampas Ridge –Chamise

Leona Heights Regional Park

  • York Trail (~1mile with students)
  • McDougal Trail (~1 mile with students)

Petrified Forest National Park

  • Blue Mesa Trail (1 mile)

Point Reyes National Seashore (South District Map  North District Map)

  • Tomales Point from Pierce Point Ranch(9.5 miles)
  • Horse Trail –> Sky Trail –> Bay view trail (5 miles 2 hrs)
  • Bay View Trail –> Laguna Trail –>Fire Lane Trail (8 miles 3hrs)
  • Laguna Trail (2 miles 45 minutes)
  • Bay View Trail –> Z trail –>Wittenberg –>Sky Trail –> Bay View (7 miles 3 hours)
  • Bay View Trail –> Sky Trail –> Woodward Valley Trail –> Coast Trail –> Laguna Trail –> Hidden Valley –>Laguna (10.5 miles 3hrs 40mins)
  • Inverness Ridge –>Drakes View –>Laguna Trail (7.5 miles 2.5 hours)
  • Olema Valley – Bolema – Ridge – Greenpicker – Glen – Baldy – Sky – Bayview (14.3 miles 4.75 hours)

Redwood National Park

Redwood Regional Park

  • Stream Trail –> Prince Trail –> East Ridge –>West Ridge —French Loop –>Orchard Trail –>Birdle Trail –>Stream (9 miles 3hrs 10 mins)
  • Canyon – East Ridge – West Ridge – French – Orchard – Birdle (10 miles, 3.5 hours)
  • Graham – Dunn – Baccaris – West Ridge – Birdle – Orchard – French – Madrone – West Ridge (8 miles 3.5 hours)
  • Graham – Dunn – Baccaris – West Ridge – Orchard – French – Madrone – West Ridge (6.7 miles 2.5 hours)
  • West Ridge – Graham – Dunn – Baccaris – West Ridge – Bridle – Stream – Euclyptus – Phillips Loop – East Ridge (3.5 hours, 9.5 miles)
  • East Ridge – Canyon – Stream – Birdle – Orchard – West Ridge – Bacchaeus – Dunn-Gramm – Bowl – West Ridge (210 minutes, 10 miles)

Samuel P Taylor Park

  • Pioneer Trail (2 miles with 14 high school students)
  • Shafter Grade (4 miles 1hr 20mins)

Sequoia National Park

Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve

  • Ridge Trail – 1/2 Round Trail – Visitor Center
  • Round Top Trail – Volcanic Trail – Round top trail (3.5 miles 2 hour w/ 6yr old and 10 year old)
  • Quarry Rd – Volcanic Trail – Round Top – Skyline – Huckleberry Path – Skyline Blvd – Ridge Trail/Skyline (6.8 miles 3 hours)

Tilden Regional Park

  • Wildcat Peak Hike (w/ class of 2nd graders 4 miles) (Loop Road – Pine Tree Trail – Canyon Trail – Laurel Canyon Trail – Loop Road)
  • Jewel Lake
  • Wildcat Cat Gorge Trail – Curran Trail – Canyon Meadows Trail (3 mils 1 hour)
  • Pine Tree Trail – Laurel Canyon – Nimitz – Mezue – Wildcat Creek Trail (9.3 miles 3 hrs)
  • Wildcat Creek – Havey Canyon – Nimitz – Wildcat Peak – Wildcat Creek Trail – Sylvanian Trail – Jewel Lake Trail (7.9 miles 3hrs)
  • Vollmer Peak Trail – Lower Springs Trail – Seaview Trail Vollmer Peak – Vollmer Peak Trail. (5 miles 2 hours)
  • Seaview – Lower Springs – Quarry – Vulmer Peak – Lupine – Vulmer Peak (5miles 2hours)
  • Vulmer Peak – Lupine – Arroyo -Quarry – Meadow Canyon – Loop – Laurel Canyon – Laural Road – NImitz – Seaview – Lupine – Vulmer Peak  (10 miles 3.5 hours)
  • Canyon Meadows – Nimitz – San Pablo Ridge – Belgum – Wilcat Canyon – Loop Road (13 miles 5.5 hours)

Tongass National Forrest

  • Photopoint trail Mendenhall glacier (other trails closed due to a jokulaup) with 3 and 8 year old. Rainforest incredibly lush.

Yellowstone National Park

Yosemite National Park

 

A trip to the coastal redwoods in Humboldt

I must admit that I’m a bit of a tree-huger.   In a recent visit to the coastal redwood forests in Redwood National Park, Humboldt State Park, and…. I witnessed many spectacular natural phenomenon from big trees, to Roosevelt Elk, marbled murrelets, spotted owls, the tailed pacific frog, the Pacific Giant Salamander, and others.

I love trees!
I love trees!

2015_summer1 443

 

Raised on books like the giving tree and the Lorax trees hold a special and magical spot in my heart.   However, I learned some facts that really made me question my view of people who log trees.

Many people, including the people I met, acknowledge that their past practices 1800-1970s were pretty reprehensible.  However they are using dramatically different methods.

Fact 1: Most are concerned with the long term longevity of the forest.  They consider it a crop and do not want it to expire.  In speaking  with a small hobbyist, his forest in 1970 was 1.7 million board feet of lumber.  He’s sold 1.9 million of board feet since then (2015), and current estimates put his stock at 2.5 million of board feet on his property.  Larger commercial enterprises (Green Diamond, HRC,) also have similar calculations.

Fact 2: The above fact points to the fact that Nature Bats Last.  While images of a clear cut, or of the logging practices showing a scared land as late as the 1970s, surprisingly, the forests are back and more dense.  They recover.  While they are not “old growth” they are thriving and practices are in place for sustainability.

Fact 3: Most people harvesting timber practice Silviculture, that is managing their forest to sustain diversity of growth, bio-diversity, and sustainability.  They take time to evaluate each tree in a particular stand that they will harvest.  The evaluate the effect of wildlife, surrounding vegetation, the watershed, and the overall feel of the forest …tree-by-tree and stand-by-stand.  There is advanced modeling larger companies use to preserve the health of the forest and those dependent on it.

What do we want?  This is the overriding question.  In the 1800s they wanted to eradicate forests in favor of farm and  pastureland.   The early Yurok and Hupa Native Americans routinely burned the forest…keeping it at bay, in order to encourage the growth of Bear Grass (essential for basket weaving), and keep meadoes in place to encourage wildlife for hunting.   Currently we have a love-hate relationship with nature.  We want to visit it and revel in its wonder.  Yet we also want to control it.  We want to control fire.  We want to control when and were it can go.  We want to use it for recreation and save it for our posterity.  We try to remove invasive species that choke out local natives (Such as Ivy, scotch broom, and barred owls…), but we won’t remove ourselves as perhaps the most invasive species of all.   We fear too much what will happen if we let nature run its course…because that would undeniable mean things we want to look at today would be destroyed and not pristine until perhaps 100-200 years from now. Our wants as a society are as diverse as mother natures equation.

So we “manage” nature to guarantee it will be what we want, while allowing nature to be what we (with our best intentions and science) understand it to be.  Of the many concerns I have about this, two primary concerns come to the fore.

1: The cost and energy required for such an undertaking are immense.  We do so because we currently are rich.  What is the total energy footprint of this management I wonder.  Is it really cost-effective?  What will happen when we become poor.  This is a “rich white value” and I’m wondering how will we sustain it when things change.

2: Mother Nature’s equation is way to complex for us to understand.  Our history is one of doing something today, without fully understanding what the effect will be to other species or over time.  We keep figuring it out. We’ll just introduce a toad here, or a snake there, or plant there, and before we know it, we’ve destabilized an entire region.  Moreover, mother nature is a killer.  There is a constant battle of species dominance and infinite cycles of life and death.  When we intervene, we take sides…this interrupts cycles and erodes various species ability to adapt. Rather they adapt to our intermediate habits, and when we change, they fail to change in step.  In short we meddle with a system that is beyond our capability of understanding (yet?).  The cost has been and will continue to be the destruction of that which we want to save.

 

 

The biggest and the oldest!

Another treat this summer was the first time 10 years I got a week to myself.  I took myself to Sequoia to see some the of the largest single living organisms in the world: The great sequoias.  Capturing the size and majesty of these enormous trees in photograph or a words is impossible.  They are huge. They are old. And they are resilient.

Here you can see General Sherman with some ant-like people next to it.

Sequoia_2014 106

Some General Sherman facts (courtesy of wikipedia):

  • Circumference at ground: 102 feet
  • Circumference at base: 36.5 feet
  • Height above base: 275 feet
  • Estimated bole mass:  2,472,000 lb

A truly massive tree.  But what some of the things that make sequoia interesting is their resiliency:

Sequoia_2014 016

You can see that this tree has been burned.  Want to know what the base looks like?

sequoia_base

 

Less than 1/4 of the this tree’s base remains.  Yet it supports a massive amount of heft.

sequoia_face

 

Some of the sequoias had faces.  This tree was at the end of the Redwood Canyon Trail.

 

Later in this trip, I ventured to the Bristlecone Forest.  Where the oldest living organisms live: The Bristlecone Pine trees.  At about 9,000 feet in a very punishing environment, these trees grow on rocky slopes, where vegetation has no reason to exist, yet these trees thrive and persevere over many millennia.  Walking through the Methuselah grove, trees dating as old as 4900 years old still grew nearby.  Like the sequoias, these trees are survivors.  In some cases less that 40% of their bark remains, and the tree continues to grow.  In other cases, all but a single branch of the tree would be dead.  Here are some of my favorite photographs.

bristlecone_pine_root  bristleconepine_2

bristlecone_pine_3 moonbow

 

The wood is dense and smooth.  The air is clean.  The area is quiet.  On my six am hike I ran into two other hikers taking pictures.  I heard them long before  I even saw them.  At night I camped at the Grandview campground and was treated to a moonbow.  Although spectacular it made constellation viewing impossible.

 

There were some awesome learning opportunities here:

Manazanar National Park, The Sequoia Institute, and an extremely supportive ranger staff committed to project based education.  I drove all the way home trying to figure out how to get my family and students down there.

 

 

 

Professional Development – Activities

This is a collection of Professional Development Activities.  If you just want to read something or take a online course…look over here.

Outdoors/Hands On

  1. Point Reyes Education Center
    • 2 days, with follow on ability to reserve the ed center for your class.
  2. Project Learning Tree
  3. Exploratorium Teacher Institute
    • Hands down the best Professional Development I’ve ever done.
    • 2-3 weeks of learning in the Exploratorium with the added bonus of a personal life-time membership
    • There are follow on 1/2 day classes regularly offered throughout the year.
  4.  Forestry Institute.
    1. 1 Week of training in the forest — how cool is that.
  5. NASA PBL
    1. 1 week at NASA developing a PBL unit w/ paid stipend.  This looks good to me.
  6. Camp Phoenix looks like fun.

Indoors

  1. BAMP (Bay Area Math Project).
    • Usually a week workshop during the summer, with following seminars during the year.
  2. CMC – North Asilomar
    • A 1-2 day conference in pacific grove (near Monterey California)
    • There are over a hundred workshops offered, you selected 4-5 to go to.
    • The workshops are hit/or miss.
  3. BACT (Bay Area Circle for Teachers) 
    • This was a great week long conference.  Great speakers and content. Funding has dried up, so I don’t know when it will be offered again.
    • The good news is that there are many other Circle Conferences offered across the USA.

Bay Area Science Org has a calendar with a list of events:

 

Propane tank frost – The ideal gas law.

While camping, a parent observed this phenomenon:

propane_tank

 

Here is a pretty good explanation from the Wardburner.

Here was my thinking process:

  1. The area around the base was cold enough to cause water in the atmosphere to change from gas to solid.
  2. What was causing the metal at the base to become colder?
  3. The canister was being used.  The Heat at the top was “pulling” the heat up through the opening therefore causing a temperature differential.
  4. I also posited it was specific to propane. This phenomenon doesn’t happen with Oxygen tanks.

I was wrong of course.

  1. Stored inside the canister is liquid propane.
  2. As it is used, it moves from liquid state to gas state.
  3. The regulator restricts the flow of the gas to a usable level
  4. FTAM351FOVXP019.MEDIUM
  5. The regulator only delivers constant pressure.
  6. To move from liquid to gas requires energy (Phase change)
  7. It draws in heat from the surrounding metal.  This metal then draws heat from the atmosphere, which causes any moisture around the metal to condense and freeze.
  8. PV=nRT\, is the ideal gas law for
  9. P is the pressure of the gas

  10. V is the volume of the gas

  11. n is the amount of substance of gas (also known as number of moles)

  12. R is the ideal, or universal, gas constant, equal to the product of the Boltzmann constant and the Avogadro constant.

  13. T is the temperature of the gas

T = PV/nR

P and V are going down, so PV is getting smaller.  n is going down as well, but R is fixed.  Thus to maintain balance T must be dropping as well.  But are PV getting smaller than the value of n?

Also, why does it happen at the bottom and not any where else?

Sunbow a.k.a. Sun Halo

I went camping with my family and some friends.  In the mid afternoon we saw a sunbow.  Everyone was fascinated.  Some of the adults got together and posited the following that must be moisture in the high atmosphere.  One of the parents suggested that with a rain bow light passes through a water drop and the light is scattered, inverted, then inverted again.  Here with the sunbow, there is only one inversion and that is why the ROYBGIV was inverted only once.  This explained why the color was inverted, but not why it was circular nor why we had to look the sun to see it.

I looked these up and found a 46° and a 22° sun halo and coronas.

From what I can tell 46°:

  • is larger
  • is more rare
  • occurs only when the sun is 15°-27° over the horizen
  • The 90° inclination between the two faces of the crystals causes the colors of the 46° halo to be more widely dispersed than those of the 22° halo.

22° sun halo:

  • Is smaller
  • Is more frequent (100 times a year)
  • As light passes through the 60° apex angle of the hexagonal ice prisms it is deflected twice resulting in deviation angles ranging from 22° to 50°

In all pretty interesting stuff.