Climate Change and Caterpillars with Ms. Ball

THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE: Build Your Own!

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:14:00 +0000

THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE: Build Your Own Caterpillar & Parasitoid!

For your final Response Journal assignment, go to:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/be_an_explorer/map/caterpillar_play.htm

PART 1
Use this online tool to design and build your own caterpillar. You may adjust COLOR, SPINES, or EXTRA to match the situation described. Instead of typing the responses into the computer simulation and printing them, I would like you to write and draw directly into your response journal.

CATERPILLAR #1 (the ant scene)
CATERPILLAR #2 (the bird scene)
CATERPILLAR #3 (the forest floor scene)
a) Sketch each caterpillar in your response journal and use colored pencils or markers to color it
b) Name each of your caterpillars (common name and scientific name)
c) Under each drawing, describe why you chose these features for this particular caterpillar

PART 2
Next, I would like you to choose your favorite caterpillar (1, 2, or 3) and design a parasitoid that would parasitize it. Make your parasitoid either a fly or a wasp, but you can be creative!

a) Sketch and color it (you will need to draw an adult, egg, larva, and pupa
b) Give your parasitoid a common and scientific name
b) Write a paragraph describing its life history. Include the following:

-how does it find its host caterpillar?
-where and how does it lay its eggs?
-what special features does it have that allow it to be a parasitoid?
-how does the egg change to larva, pupa, and adult?
-how long does it take to go through all the life stages?

You may wish to use Google to read about real parasitoid wasps and flies, but I would like you to be creative and make something up that is highly specialized to your caterpillar. GOOD LUCK!

The Magic School Kayak

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:17:00 +0000

Do you remember Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus? She is my personal literary heroine. I wish more than anything that I could load you all on a bus (or kayak?) and take you on field trips around the world with just a wink and a nod just like she does. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that we will always be limited in time and money, and no one has let me drive a bus yet! But I have to say that this trip is the closest I have come to being as cool as Miss F. I had never imagined that I would get to teach my classes from an actual field site, but now that this has happened, it makes my head spin. Think of all the cool ways we could use this technology to go on virtual field trips or interview important biologists! For your last CHALLENGE QUESTION, I would like you to make a list of 10 ways we could use videoconferencing and/or blogging for our Biology classes at SWJHS.

And here is your last mystery caterpillar—I saved Mystery Caterpillar #5 for last because it was the first and last cate

rpillar I saw on this trip. This caterpillar is everywhere in the city because it loves the huge live oaks that are all over. It drops from the trees and leaves burns on human skin as it has poison sacs attached to its spines! OUCH!!! Write its scientific name in your response journal (don't forget www.caterpillars.org).

I am back in Kansas today and I am looking forward to seeing you all! Here is a link to the article about us and the video segment that was on the news:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/apr/27/biology-teacher-shares-virtual-lessons-field-er-sw/

I want to thank all of you for your patience when the technology wasn’t perfect. I had a great time and I hope you learned a little and enjoyed our interactions Live from the Field.

THANKS AGAIN TO EARTHWATCH, HSBC, REBECCA HAZEN, AND USD 497 STAFF FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN!!!!!!

Signing Off!
Ms. Ball

FAQ--(YOUR QUESTIONS)--Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Here are more answers to your awesome questions!!!

Is the research you are doing trying to help prevent extinction?
Not specifically, but you know that when an ecosystem is out of balance, sometimes extinction events do occur.

The Six Flags park reminds us of the old factory on the edge of Lawrence. No one wants to tear the factory down because it would release harmful chemicals, so it just sits there.
You are right, that is a very good comparison!

Were there any huge spiders in the trees?
There were huge spiders everywhere. Scientist Mark even left his tent to sleep in the bunkhouse the last night, there were so many spiders in his tent (and he loves spiders!)

Are there any other places you visited in town?
Yes! I wrote about them on the blog for Sunday. I sampled way too many pralines and enjoyed seeing a real jazz wedding parade in the quarter.

How can a parasitoid affect another parasitoid? And also, how long is the caterpillar going to live? It's kind of creepy that the wasps can do that to the caterpillar, but it is very interesting.
The hyperparasitoid wasp will sometimes land on the caterpillar and use her feet to feel for vibrations of parasitoid larvae inside the caterpillar. If they are there, she will inject her eggs into the parasitoid through the skin of the caterpillar.

When a caterpillar is injected by a wasp, does the caterpillar feel any pain or feel the eggs growing inside?
We can't know for sure but we do know that insects have a more simple nervous system than we do. The parasitized caterpillars sometimes behave oddly, kind of like the crazy fungus-infected ants we watched on the Planet Earth video in class.

Wow, that is really cool. I had no idea that wasps could look like that in their egg form!
The wasps in the video are actually larvae, about to pupate. After they pupate they will emerge looking like adult wasps.

Is there any chance of the caterpillar living if the larvae on the caterpillar are removed?
Usually not. At that point the caterpillar's soft tissues have been mostly eaten away and it has a hole or several holes where the larvae emerged.

I had heard of caterpillars being infected by wasps and flies but I had never actually seen one with the signs of an infection. Cool and a little nauseating.
Yes, I agree! I was pretty excited to also discover some tachinid fly pupae yesterday when I was working zoo duty. They look like brown footballs.

Are there uber-hyperparasitoids?
I am not sure, but maybe you can become a parasitologist and find out some day!

Do all parasitoids infect all caterpillar species? Or are they selective about the host?
Wasps tend to be more species specific than flies. We saw a wasp buzzing by an aggregation of tent caterpillars when we were in the kayaks one day. The caterpillars did the "caterpillar dance" featured on the video--it is a defense mechanism!

What kind of eggs were laid on the inchworm in the video?
They were actually wasp larvae, but the only way to know what kind is to rear them out, so Rebecca will keep watching them until they emerge as adults.

When will we see you wrestling an alligator?
The only wrestling I did was with the kayak, going upriver! On the very last day the wildlife manager told us about some local kids who were messing around with gators from their boat. One boy got his arm ripped out of the socket and eaten by an alligator. Glad I heard that story on the last day and not the first!

How many eggs can a wasp lay in a caterpillar?
This is very species specific Some may just lay a few and others may lay hundreds. HUNDREDS!!!!!!

These parasites would be rather frightening if they laid their eggs on plants that humans rely for medicine and things like that.
Well there ARE plenty of creepy parasites in the world that affect plants and other animals, including humans. I highly recommend the book Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer if you want to know more about parasites. It's very entertaining, educational, and disgusting too!

I watched a video a while back about the Leucochloridium paradoxum, and it's so cool how the parasite uses the snail so that it can get to its next host, the bird.
Parasites often have complex life cycles and may require intermediate vector organisms to get to their ultimate host. Again, read Parasite Rex!

Happy Earth Day! In honor of Earth Day, we were wondering if your bunkhouse is green, as in eco-friendly?
We made it as green as possible! We all brought reusable water bottles from home so that we wouldn't be using new bottles of water each day, recycled all our cans and glass, and tried to conserve toilet and shower water. We didn't prepare any red meat during our field time, and mostly ate vegetarian (cutting back on red meat is not only healthy, it saves water and energy). The air conditioner was only run when it got too hot for the caterpillar zoo, which amounted to parts of two days.

What's the weather like?
It is beautiful, we really lucked out. There hasn't been rain, and it has been sunny and breezy, about 80 degrees each day.

We watched the video, poor caterpillar--he looked like he was in a lot of pain!
Keep in mind that this is just part of the natural food chain. The parasitoid mothers just want to provide food for their young when they lay eggs on a caterpillar. If parasitoids didn't exist, there would probably be way too many caterpillars and then plant crops would be more heavily damaged, which would affect other creatures.

It sounds like it is wet and gross and muddy there. We are glad you are having fun but missing you!
I miss you too! It certainly is wet and muddy, but luckily I have my super-duper rubber field boots with me. It can be quite fun squishing around in the mud with them on!

Melinda wants to know if you had another encounter with the wild pig. How exciting!
We sure found a lot of tracks, but never met them face to face. We were told to climb a tree if we did, and I am not sure my rubber boots were made for climbing, and most trees were covered in poison ivy, so I was OK with not seeing them in person!

Why don't the pigs sink in the deep mud?
They do leave messy wallows, but they can still get around pretty well because of the shapes of their hooves, and also because it was mostly herds of piglets in the areas where we were working.

We hope no one lost their shoes in the mud!
We had some close calls! One of the field assistants did lose his boots in a kayaking accident, they sank like rocks in the river!

Did you have to know how to kayak before the trip?
It was not a requirement, but we were all pretty adventurous teachers! Luckily, Ms. Lotton-Barker and I took students kayaking on a lake by a volcano in Costa Rica last summer, which I loved, and I had also tried sea kayaking in Baja, but the waves scared me there.

How many plants do you normally classify per plot?
All of them! Sometimes there were so many it took several hours to finish vegetation on a plot.
Sometimes the plots were very thick with blackberry brambles and it was really challenging to move around.

What does the ugliest caterpillar you have caught look like?
I think Mystery Caterpillar #5 (on Tues blog) is probably the ugliest. It was almost elegant in a way too, because it was so ugly, if that makes sense.

What is the purpose of estimating number of leaves?
Rebecca plugs all the data into a formula that takes into account the average leaf surface area for each species of plant surveyed, which allows her to get an estimate of the average surface of vegetation in each plot. We also estimated the amount of herbivory (insect damage) in percentage, and that factors into the data as well to help her understand the tritrophic relationship between the caterpillars, the plants, and the parasitoids.

Numbers from the Field

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:27:00 +0000

We spent part of Saturday and Sunday back at Tulane University helping Rebecca finalize the data from the week of fieldwork.

During our 7 days in the field last week, we:
-collected 513 caterpillars from 13 families in plots and general collections.
-reared 19 parasitoids (and many more are likely to be on the way!...)
-completed assessments for 10 plots, which translates to estimating 2,033,790 leaves from 785 square meters of bottomland hardwood forest and Cypress-Tupelo Swamp.
WOW!!!!!

Here is a picture of the lovely Park View Guest House where we stayed when in New Orleans. We had Sunday afternoon and evening free and spent time down in the French Quarter shopping, listening to great music, eating beignets at the famouse Cafe du Monde, and later a crawfish po' boy. In the evening the whole crew met up at a sushi place and we enjoyed our last meal together. I just have to share a picture of the awesome Caterpillar Roll we ordered (it was almost too cute to eat, but delicious!)

This morning, after a run in beautiful Audubon park, I packed up my bags and said goodbye to the wonderful friends I made on this trip. I am looking forward to keeping in touch and even sharing teaching ideas with my new teacher buddies.

I have a few CLUE pix to share with you that may help you answer challenge questions from earlier posts. See what you think!

I am also going to post some requested Garden District mansion photos. The one with the carriage belongs to Nicholas Cage. The white house below is the one that was in the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Bunkhouse Biologists and FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:49:00 +0000

Living in the bunkhouse is a little like going back to summer camp. There are 8 of us sleeping in this room and 10 of us sharing the same bathroom (and sometimes the port-a-potty, when the indoor toilet gets overworked!) We also share our bunkhouse with the caterpillar zoo, and eat here too. All of us share duties like cooking, cleaning, food shopping, etc. Since most of us are teachers, we know it takes teamwork to make this expedition go smoothly!

I thought you might like seeing some of daily life in the bunkhouse. Remember that we work all day and after dinner, most of us spend the night working (and often fighting) with Blogger so that we can connect with you students back home. We have been getting to bed most nights around midnight. Even though we are busy working, we enjoy sharing our photos and videos from the day, and talking about our hometowns, schools, and families.

This morning we packed and left the Pearl River Wildlife Management area in Slidell and came back to New Orleans. We spent time at Tulane University in Rebecca's lab unpacking the caterpillars and working on the database. We will return tomorrow to wrap things up, but in the meantime, I am going out for some authentic Cajun food and maybe a little jazz.

I am going to post a bunch of FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS and answers below. I will save some of them for tomorrow as well since there are so many. I have LOVED getting your questions and I consulted with Rebecca and her team when I didn't know the answers.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FROM YOU!

Did you get to meet Nicholas Cage?
No, but I know where Brad Pitt’s house is now! Maybe I will swing by and we can talk caterpillars!

What did the mansions look like?
I will post some pix this weekend—they are amazing!

We hope the teacher who reached for the Copperhead is okay.
She was VERY surprised but just fine. More people are bitten by copperheads
than any other snake in the US but usually the bite is not fatal, it just causes extreme pain and extensive scarring.

The swamp reminds us of the rainforest because of the variety of creatures.
You are right, there is great diversity here! But biodiversity is all around us, even in Kansas. Sometimes we just forget tolook!

How have the mystery caterpillars adapted to their environment?
We have seen many cool adaptations this week, including camouflage and mimicry. One of the coolest mimics I saw was too difficult to photograph, but it is a tiny inchworm that pretends to be a petiole (leaf stem) on grape leaves. It attached itself just like the petiole, but in the wrong place. It was really hard to find in the bag during zoo duty!

In civics we're watching a video on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and we were wondering, how did the Hurricane affect the caterpillar population?

Rebecca says that the caterpillar life cycles were completely off for a very long time. They would see caterpillars during the fall that were usually present in spring and vice versa.

How does this experiment affect the butterfly population?
Insects have a super high reproductive value, so the localized collecting couldn’t possibly make a dent in the butterfly population.

How do you handle poisonous caterpillars?

We have to mostly be careful of the fuzzy or spikey caterpillars because some of them have stinging hairs or spines. We try to pick them up on a leaf instead of with bare hands.

About how many species have Rebecca and her colleagues found?
Just this week we have found about 25 species.

What is the most interesting thing you have seen a caterpillar do?
Walking around half dead with parasitoids (like in the video I posted) is definitely the creepiest thing I have ever seen a caterpillar do! Some of the teachers actually got to see some of the larvae popping out of the caterpillar’s back!!!! UGH!

Where is the most common place you find caterpillars?

I found the highest diversity on oak trees during this expedition.

Your days sound very exciting. We think it is great that your research matches the predictions. Is it scary working with caterpillars infected with wasps?
It is a little creepy to think about but then again we have to remember that this is part of the natural food web around here. Luckily the wasps can’t hurt us (I am more worried about tipping the kayak, running into poison ivy, stepping on a poisonous snake, or running out of Diet Coke!)

How deep was the water?

In the bayou sometimes it was pretty shallow, I would guess about 4 feet. But on the river there are 20 ft holes. The locals thought we were pretty crazy to be kayaking on such high water….oops!

Did anyone almost flip over?
Yes, almost but not quite! Luckily the motor boats were slowing down for us.

How many caterpillars did you find?

I will let you know this weekend.

We are heading back to Tulane University tomorrow and will hopefully finalize the database.

We watched Ms Coleman's videos and they were very entertaining, we were worried that she was in peril at one point, but then we realized there were no alligators
She’s a crazy caterpillar hunter! She did film a gator today—check her later posts if you would like some gator drama!

Tell us about any Katrina impact you see in the bayou!
I still see trash way up high in the trees. We found an MRE (government-issued food pack, dehydrated) floating in the water yesterday, probably left over from Katrina. It was dried roast beef and veggies…delish!

We think it is very cool that you have to kayak to get to your desired destination. Sam wishes she was as cool as you. And she says don't go ocean kayaking. ;)
Well Sam is at least as cool as me! And yep, sea kayaks and ocean waves are not something I enjoyed when I tried it in Baja---YIKES!!!

Can caterpillars change into different colors? Say a lime green caterpillar crawled onto a dark green leaf, will it make the small adjustment to blend more or will it just stay the same.
No, caterpillars don’t have those cool melanophore cells that allow organisms like squid to change color. But we did find a little Gelichiid caterpillar that was clear except for the color of food it just ate!Is the increasing number of caterpillars and decreasing number of plants affect the food chain in Louisiana?Of course it does, and it affects more than just a chain, it affects the complex food web. Some organisms suffer from the increase in caterpillars (like plants) and some will benefit (like birds that eat caterpillars), but the balance of nature gets changed.

When you are dealing with the caterpillars and finding them do you need any special gear or equipment that you have to use?

We use the beat sheets, which are just wooden sticks with fabric stretched over them, and we use a stick or machete to beat the brush. Other than that, we just need lots of Ziplocs and sharpies for labeling! Rubber boots were a necessity and I sure wish I had gloves because we had to bushwhack through so much thorny blackberry vine.

How exactly do you catch the caterpillars from the trees in the swamp while your in the kayak?
Very carefully!

Have you found any caterpillars with the wasp larva in them?
Yes, more than I expected. I don’t have an exact number but I will try to find out when we finish the database this week.

Sounds like you're having a great time down there! I bet classifying the caterpillars is a lot like the classification we did on our insect projects.
It is, but there are not as many resources. There is one main field guide to caterpillars and not every species is in it. It feels a bit like detective work trying to ID them some days. It’s a good reminder that we never stop making new discoveries in science.

Are there any differences between the way diferent species reproduce?
Yes, I wrote a little bit about this on my blog, but Rebecca says that scientists still don’t know all there is to know about parasitoids because it is hard to follow the entire life cycle. They are learning new things about parasitoids every day during this study.

Dawn to Dusk

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0000

My kayak crew worked a record three plots today and we were rewarded with a gorgeous trip paddling downriver by sunset.

This is one of my caterpillar finds that I fell in love with. He's been called the "Cutest Catepillar in the World" and "Cuticus maximus" but his real name is Fall Webworm (Hyphantria cunea). He never slows down, so it is hard to get a good picture of this punky little guy.

I usually get up before the other teachers and try to get out for a little early morning bird watching. Today I got to see a pair of Yellow-billed Cuckoos feasting on tent caterpillars up in the treetops--yummy breakfast! I started thinking about just how interconnected all the creatures are in this local ecosystem. Ecologists often use a diagram called a FOOD WEB to show these interactions, or the flow of energy from one organism to another.

CHALLENGE QUESTION: Can you use these organisms in a food web to show who eats whom in our local swamp? Write the words in your response journal and use arrows to connect them. See an example of a food web here if you need more guidance!

TENT CATERPILLAR
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO

MAPLE TREE

BRACCONID WASP (parasitoid)

BACTERIA

BLACKBERRY BUSH

COOPER'S HAWK

TACHINID FLY (parasitoid)

CHALCID WASP (hyperparasitoid)

Fun in the Field

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:18:00 +0000

After I spoke with you yesterday I headed out on kayak crew and we had a bit of an adventure! We decided to go ahead and try to cross the Pearl River with the kayaks because the water level is going down each day. It took a little extra skill but we managed to get to the opposite bank. Right away we found fresh wild pig tracks in the ankle deep mud. A few weeks ago the wildlife manager was charged by wild pigs, so we definitely checked the plot before getting to work.

After we started the vegetation survey we heard some fast boats come by but didn't much of it until a boat pulled up and yelled for us. Somehow our kayaks had managed to wash out into the river in the wake of the boats and they had floated WAY down the river. Some nice fishermen and the local wildlife manager rescued them for us and saved the day! Everyone around here is so nice!

Some of you have been asking about what we do in the field. Here are some pictures showing us hard at work. When we arrive at a site we set up a transect with flagging tape (10 meter diameter) and then take a GPS point so that we can record the location. The team splits up and identifies each species of plant and estimates the number of leaves on each plant. WHEW! That is a lot of work. We also search for caterpillars on each plant and then hold the beat sheet under each plant and whack it with a machete or stick to get the little guys out of the vegetation.

Today I got to go out on kayak crew again and this time we got dropped off up river, worked two plots, and then floated down river two miles to get back to the bunkhouse. It was so awesome! Don't forget to check out the mystery caterpillar below!

MYSTERY CATERPILLAR #4: Please ID with scientific name and write the answer in your response journal! Isn't he adorable?

CAUTION:Parasitoids Ahead!

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:25:00 +0000

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Here are some of the parasitoids we found on a Geometrid (inchworm) caterpillar yesterday. Watch the video and then read on!

So most you probably figured out that PARASITOIDS are parasites that live on their hosts during part of their development and kill their host in the end. The parasitoids that the researchers are seeing here are flies and wasps. The flies are usually generalists and lay their eggs on plants that are eaten by the caterpillars. The eggs develop inside the caterpillar and eventually burrow out of the caterpillar as larvae and then pupate. The wasps are more specialized and search for caterpillars to parasitize. The female wasp injects her eggs into the caterpillar with her ovipositor and the eggs develop inside of the caterpillar. The larvae then burrow out of the caterpillar and hang onto the barely alive caterpillar while they pupate. There are even some parasitoids that parasitize other parasitoids, called hyperparasitoids. Creepy but cool, huh?

It was awesome seeing the rest of you today during the videoconference. I guess some of you in 6th or 7th hour might even be on TV or in the newspaper--pretty exciting, huh? I hope you have a better idea of what is going on here now.

Keep working on your response journals and posting those great comments and questions!

Kayaking for Caterpillars

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:07:00 +0000

If you watched the video link from yesterday, you know that we are traveling by kayak to collect caterpillars. We collected from our boats for several hours yesterday. It was beautiful out on the water—a Pileated Woodpecker and Great Egret were swooping down around us, and warblers were calling from the treetops. I quickly had to learn how to navigate around the tupelo and cypress trees in the swirling bayou water and how to stay in one spot long enough to grab the caterpillars off the plant. It was obvious to us that this area is experiencing an outbreak of Forest Tent Caterpillars, which is pretty exciting because it matches the predictions of the research model that Dr. Dyer has been developing.

Some of you have asked what we are doing with the caterpillars once we put them in our zoo. Besides just keeping them alive, and logging in their data, we are also watching for signs of parasitoids. The researchers are looking at TRITROPHIC interactions, studying the relationship between plants, the caterpillars that eat them, and the wasps or flies that parasitize the caterpillars. Dr. Dyer’s research model predicts that high variation in precipitation results in lower parasitoid rates. If there are fewer parasitoids, this means that there may be an outbreak of caterpillars which could lead to more herbivory (plant damage by insects) than usual. His research team was hoping to model variation when Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans area, and suddenly they had a natural experiment in the making.

I heard that some of you watched a movie about Katrina in Civics this week and were asking about the status of this area. Some areas around here were not hit very hard at all, like the French Quarter, but some of the low-income housing areas were destroyed, and have not been rebuilt. It was really strange driving by the Six Flags amusement park and the whole thing is still standing, but too damaged to re-open, and too expensive to tear down—it was like a ghost town. We saw all kinds of abandoned boats still mixed in with trash and debris, and there was even a mattress still wedged in the highest tree in the area.

Some people may not care what happens to plants or caterpillars in Louisiana, but hopefully we can take a bigger message away from this study. Climate scientists predict that as global temperatures rise, the intensity and frequency of global storms may increase. CHALLENGE QUESTION: Do you think humans can have a positive impact on the global warming situation? If so, what could we do?

Also, can you please help us identify MYSTERY CATERPILLAR #3? Write its scientific name in your response journal!!! Keep up the awesome comments too. I will post some of my favorites tonight...

Life in the Zoo!

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:33:00 +0000

This morning I got to videoconference with 1st hr--it was fun talking with you guys and I hope to see the rest of you on Wednesday!

Here is Mystery Caterpillar #2. Please look it up on http://www.caterpillars.org/ and write down its scientific name in your response journal. Remember the rules of writing scientific names? Also, think about what the spots are on the caterpillar and jot something down about their function!

When we find caterpillars in the field, we have to bag them up with some of leaves that they are eating, ID the plant and caterpillar, determine their instar stage, location, date, etc. All of these data are later entered into the project database for analysis. It takes lots of data to conduct a real scientific study. Rebecca and her colleagues have already collected over 11,000 caterpillars for her project! That's a LOT of caterpillars!!!!

The caterpillars we collect are then brought back to the bunkhouse where we are staying and they are clipped on to a rearing rack. Every day we have to spend time working the caterpillar zoo, checking for life stage changes and parasitoids, and we also get the pleasure of cleaning out the frass--lots of it! I was on zoo duty for a while after my videoconference, and we were excited to see that Mystery Caterpillar #1 is pupating! In this picture you will see Dr. Dyer (in the plaid shirt), the principal investigator, who flew in to Nevada to talk to us about the research project. He oversees caterpillar research in Arizona, Louisiana, Costa Rica, and Ecuador.

Your CHALLENGE QUESTION for the day is--what is the difference between a parasite and a parasitoid? Also, what insect orders are most likely to be parasitoids? Be sure and write your answer in your response journal.

Our study plots are FLOODED this year, so the main area we need to get to for collection is not accessible by foot. If you would like to see how we got to them this afternoon, click on this link to a video titled:

"Crazy Caterpillar Hunter"

(scroll down to the bottom of the linked page to view it)

This video was directed by Liz, one of the other teachers and I am pretty sure it will be on the Discovery Channel soon...just wait! I will write more about this exciting collection technique tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Swamp Surprises

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:13:00 +0000

I spent today in the field with the other teachers and our lead researcher, Rebecca, and her assistants. This project is part of her PhD dissertation research, so she is guiding our field work. We traveled to the nearby Honey Island Swamp today to start our hunt for caterpillars. It was helpful knowing which plants and trees they like the best, but also, we had to look for signs of fresh leaf damage and frass (if you don't know what this is, look it up!)

Here is MYSTERY CATERPILLAR #1. Go to http://www.caterpillars.org/ and look through the photos of Louisiana caterpillars. Find the scientific name for this crazy caterpillar and write it in your response journal!

We found some other exciting creatures in the swamp as well. One of the teachers was reaching for what she thought was a very LARGE caterpillar when she realized it was a small snake, a poisonous copperhead! We also spotted a big fat water moccasin sunning on a log, another venomous snake. Not everything out there was dangerous though! We were so lucky to find the nest of a beautiful Prothonotary Warbler with four eggs, and found anoles and skinks throughout the day.

Here is my challenge for today. Can you find a creature in this photo (besides the tree)? Write down what you think you see (you can look it up online if you like) and explain what is going on in this picture. *HINT*--this is something we just studied!!!

I will tell you more about the caterpillar research project tomorrow. In the meantime, start thinking about what parasites, caterpillars, and climate change could have in common, and enjoy this little caterpillar dance video, directed by Erika, one of the other teachers!

Down in New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:58:00 +0000

Hello Everyone!
I am reporting live from the field, at last! We arrived at the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area tonight and just had a late dinner at 9:30 p.m. You will hear more about the caterpillar work tomorrow, when we actually get into the field.

It was very exciting meeting the six other teachers from all over the U.S. We got to explore the French Quarter last night, and I rode my first street car. The French Quarter Festival is going on right now, so it is pretty lively everywhere you go--lots of great live jazz and zydeco. This morning several of us went on a tour of mansions (some owned by celebrities such as Anne Rice, John Goodman, Nicholas Cage, Archie Manning, etc) and a famous cemetary in the Garden District.

Here is a challenge for my students! Based on my photo and your knowledge of human biology and geography of New Orleans, can you explain why the graves are built this way and how they function?

A Little Taste of Kansas

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:26:00 +0000

In less than one week, our team leaves for the field. I have so much to do! But we are still having fun back in Kansas. I spent a delightful Saturday with 31 freshman Biology students visiting the Konza Prairie (thanks to Target Fieldtrip grants for funding us!) Most students in Kansas seem to know more about the rainforest than our own gorgeous native prairie. We drove 1 1/2 hours to the Flint Hills, hiked 3 miles and got to see the recent burns, new wildflowers peeking through (we had snow even last week--spring has been late to come this year!), a Horned Lizard, and lots of tiny fusillinid fossils in the limestone outcroppings. Our guide taught us to use the sumac as a toothbrush, but Jenny and Josh decided they would rather never brush again than to have to use the homeade brush. We learned that the keys to keeping prairie around are grazing, fire, and climate (lots of wind!) We identified all three native grasses, Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, and Switchgrass. Then we took a 10 mile driving tour on our bus into the bison fields where they maintain a herd of about 300. Our guide said we were very fortunate getting to see so many bison. We even got to see some babies nursing on their moms. I think all the freshmen girls missed the part on how dangerous these 1000 lb beasts can be, because they all wanted a pet bison to take home (they wouldn't fit on the bus though). We ended the day with ice cream and headed home. My hope is that some of our kids will get to return with their families to see the majestic Greater Prairie Chickens booming on their lek, or take the Prairie Wildflower tour in June. Thanks to our new friends at the Kansas State University Konza Prairie Biological Station for a fabulous tour!

Just Getting Started!

noreply@blogger.com (Ms. Ball) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:49:00 +0000

I teach 9th grade Biology and Advanced Biology at Southwest Junior High School in Lawrence, Kansas. I am so excited to be part of an upcoming Earthwatch Live From the Field crew. Right now I am busy making preparations for leaving my classroom, figuring out the technology side of things, and trying to decide what I will pack! On Friday, April 17th, I will leave Lawrence, KS for New Orleans to join the Caterpillars and Climate Change team from Tulane University. Check back in April--I am officially inviting you to come with me, virtually!