6th – Audrey's Blog

This week we only had three days of school, but  we had lots of fun. Lars and I got teamed up to do a disgusting project. One of us had to chew gum for two minutes (that was me), and one of us had to write down the data. First, we had to measure the piece of un-chewed gum (length times width times height), Then we weighed it. Then Lars timed me while I chewed the gum. Once that the two minutes were done, I spit the gum out and we weighed it, then I had to roll the gum out and put it in the graduated cylinder. Then I did it again, and again, we repeated this SEVEN TIMES! Once we were done, we had to draw a graph and fill out a paper. At the end of class all of us got a piece of gum. I made the poor decision to eat the gum right away, even after the whole class of chewing gum and spitting it back out and chewing it again.

The gum was so gross!!!! When it was put in the graduated cylinder, it looked a worm! I decided it was better to just stretch it out instead of having to roll it out for the graduated cylinder. at first ti was very sticky, and after being dunked in the water a couple of times, it got very very chewy.

How many 6th graders have done this before?

Would cows enjoy eating meat instead of grass?

What do mice eat?

Audrey Mason

This week we had to do the science expo, my class had to do the Wax Museum. I was Jane Goodall, and here is the speech that I wrote and had to memorize.

Hello I am Jane Goodall

It was 1957 when Dr Louis Leakey applied for a grant to start a 6 month study of chimpanzees in the wild. He believed that the study might lead to new observations about the behavior of early man. Leakey wanted an amature, someone who could think with a new mind. Impressed by my lifelong passion for animals, Leakey selected me, his 26 year old secretary, for the quest. I had not gone to university because my family was not  wealthy, so I had no training, and I didn’t have a scientific degree before I went on the expedition. My mission was to get close to chimps, to get to know them and be accepted, I wanted to be as close to talking to them as possible. This began an over 55 year study of social and family interactions of chimpanzees.

I was born  April 3, 1934 in London, England. I had grown up wanting to live in the jungle some day. 

  The reason I was not afraid of the jungle was because people weren’t talking about that sort of thing at that time, I didn’t really know what the chimps could do to me, and I always thought that if I didn’t bother the animal, the animal wouldn’t hurt me. 

Once I got to Gombe, Africa I would go out every day to see if I could get close and learn about the chimps and study them. Back then, there was no research on chimpanzees because no one had done what I was doing before, and so I didn’t know much about the chimps. I would write in my journal about my days in Gombe, I would make graphs like a scientist would, I would draw pictures of the chimps. I would go out every single day in any weather from dawn until dusk. Most of the time I would find the chimps in groups, or a single chimp, and sometimes I wouldn’t find them at all. First, before they got used to me, whenever they saw me coming close, they would run away as fast as possible. But I never thought of quitting, “I would have forever lost all self respect if I had given up.”

In those days it was thought not safe for a young girl like me to go out into the wild alone, so my mother volunteered to go with me. My mother had been the one that had believed in me my whole life. At first the chimps seemed they were never going to get used to me being there and I was always worried that time was going to run out. But, after months of waiting and not being able to get close to the chimps, they had finally accepted me! 

Once that I could recognize them by their looks, I started naming them, names like David Greybeard, and Fifi. Scientists would have never done this because they thought that people shouldn’t get attached to them if something were to happen, but I hadn’t gone to college, and didn’t know this. The chimps were a community, they are like us in so many ways. I found that the chimps all had different personalities. I observed them patting each other on the back, giving each other hugs and kisses, and sometimes tickling. They would even spend hours grooming one another. 

We have always thought that man was the tool maker, but here was one of the chimps I was studying, using a tool that he had made out of grass, to get his food from a termite mound. I sent this research to Leakey, and it was published. This was one of my biggest discoveries. Some people did not like my research because they thought that I was an untrained young girl. However, Leakey believed in my research and was able to get a grant from the National Geographic Society to keep my study going, but they would also be sending a photographer out to document the chimpanzees. His name was Hugo van Lawick. At first I did not like the company in my little paradise, but I grew to enjoy being around him, and eventually, I grew to love him. Later, we had a baby, Hugo Eric Louis, nicknamed: Grub. I knew that being a mother was helping me better understand the chimps. 

Little did I know the chimps had an aggressive side to them, I observed them fighting and killing each other, just as if they were in a war.  At first I thought that they were just like humans, but kinder and more civilized. But exactly like us they fought, too.

This study has led to so many discoveries, including other species using tools, social and family interactions, and that chimpanzees are very similar to humans. I am now 85 years old and now my purpose is to preserve the wild habitat and help animals from going extinct.  

Thank you

 

Was Jane Goodall ever put in any life threatening situations?

Was her child, Grub, ever put in any life threatening situations?

What did she usually have to eat in Gombe?

 

 

On January 28, in the village of Amliya Toli, Jharkhand, an elephant fell into a dry well that was 25 feet long. The people that were in the village awoke to hear the cries of the elephant. The people called the forest department right away. The forest department knew that they couldn’t just lift the elephant out of the well, they had to think. They thought of the Archimedes’ principle, which according to the article means that when something is in enough water, like a boat, it will rise and float. So, the rescue team filled the well up with water until they could get the elephant out. As soon as the elephant was out, it went away in to the near by forrest.

It took the team three hours with three big pumps to get it out. In the video you can see people cheering the elephant on in the background. You can definitely tell that the village really cared about the elephants safety.

Here is the article.

https://www.dogonews.com/2020/1/31/rescuers-in-northeast-india-use-the-archimedes-principle-to-save-an-elephant-in-distress

-What is the elevation in Telluride, Colorado?

-If a turtle and a rhino had a baby what would it look like?

-How many people in the world actually grow up to have their dream job?

 

We are finally done with our Biomes so that means that we can move forward with our science schedule. Now we are working on our science fair project which this year, is the hardest one (is what I’ve been told). We must write about any science person that is famous, like Beatrix Potter, Greta Thunberg, ETC. I chose to write about Jane Goodall. Now here is the thing, we not only have to write a five minute speech about this person, we have to act out this person and memorize what we have learned about them. Jane Goodall is a famous Primatologist who went to Africa to learn about  Chimpanzees, because no one really knew anything about them. This woman was only 26 when she went to Gombe. She lived with them for a very long time and even started naming them.

This week we also went on a snow shoe. It was a lot of fun because we got fresh air and it felt good to be outside. But when we were walking we came across “the crime scene”. There was blood and lot animal tracks and everything. So, of course, we followed the animal tracks. In the end, we couldn’t actually find what animals were fighting or anything. But this snow shoeing trip was a lot of fun.

What animals were fighting there?

Where did Wedgie the Porcupine go?

Where is the cat?

Okay, so this week we presented all of our hard work that we had done for the Renaissance! We showed what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks to all the other grades and teachers. I think that the other grades really liked the fair. I was very proud of the things that I had finished and I was also proud of all the other students for finishing the jobs, too.

The other thing my class had finished this week was our BIOMES!! FINALLY!!! I am really, really proud of the model I had made of the Temperate Deciduous Forest! I had worked on it one day over break (like the whole day) and I worked really hard. I especially like the smiling little goldfish in the middle of the little pond. I also am proud of my WIX website that I did, but I think that I should have read it over one more time before I presented it (ha ha). Now that we have finished our biomes, I am excited to see what we are going to learn about next in class.

Do dogs get cold in the winter?

How do you say “kayak” in sign language?

How do you say “snow day” in Italian?

 

 

 

The last 2 weeks of school have been a lot of fun. We were doing multi-age for 2 weeks which means that 5-8 grade kids got mixed up and was put into “virtual grades”. I was in virtual 8th grade, though on regular weeks, I am in 6th grade. This year the theme was the Renaissance, which was from the  1400s through the 1600s. In my virtual class I had Naomi, David, Maddie, Ellie, Brody, Lucy, Alex, and myself. I didn’t like that we had winter break in the middle of the multi-age unit because I missed the friends I didn’t get to see during break. I loved making the castle  in math class because we needed to think hard about the materials that we were going to use, and we had to measure lots of things to get it correct, my team had lots of fun. I also had fun making letters in French class. In French, we chose a person from a royal family and learned a lot about them. When we learned enough, we wrote a letter to whomever we wanted, and I chose to write to Lucy , who was Katherine Grey. I was Mary Grey and Lucy was my “sister”. Once we wrote the letter, we printed it out, stained it with tea, and then burned the edges of it to make it look really old. We also put a wax stamp on it and rolled it up with string.

Last week we took a field trip. We went to 3 Swords Fencing, which was a lot of fun. I thought it wasn’t going to be fun because it was first thing in the morning, but we played a game kind of like Fox-Tails and that woke me up. Learning about fencing was very interesting because I didn’t know so much history was behind it. Fencing is so much fun! I would do that field trip again. Thank you for bringing us there Shane and Coach!

-How many people in traverse City Fence?

-who created the word purple?

-Did Leonardo da Vinci like bananas?

 

This week we had the Winter Concert. Fourth through eighth grade goes on stage and performs two songs. One song is instrumental and one song has words. My class had a creepy lullaby called Cradle Hymn, which was instrumental, and I got to play the glockenspiel along with Alisha. We also had a song called Flying, which was the song with words. In the song Flying, Gus danced a beautiful solo, Alisha played  amazingly on the piano, Lars was really great on the key board, and Lizzie, Aidan and I sang perfectly (I think, but I couldn’t really hear us singing because I was singing along, and it is hard to tell how loud or quiet you are when you are singing through a microphone on stage).

I also performed in the orchestra, I play the cello. This year we played three songs. One of them was called Berleske, one was called Plaintive Melody (Ms. Ludwig always called it Shubert because that was what she called it when she played it in her orchestra, I think), and one was called Little Drummer Boy. My favorite out of all three is Plaintive Melody. I thought it was so pretty and I really liked the cello part.

Why did Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear?

What is Pablo Picasso’s favorite color?

Was Gandhi allergic to anything?

This is a picture of a glockenspiel.

Do you have cat allergies? I love cats, but I have allergic reactions when I’m around them. So when I saw this article on Science News for Students I had to read it with the hopes of being able to one day get a cat. While I was reading I found out that cats have a protein in their saliva and urine that 20% of humans are allergic to. The protein is called Fel d1. This protein is what leaves you with  a stuffed up nose and itchy, watery eyes. The magical product that will help us is actually a cat food that scientists invented. They use an antibody from eggs and put it in the cat food. This antibody neutralizes the protein in the cat food so that when the human pets the cat the person won’t have as much of an allergic reaction. Scientists say that because this will only help with mild allergies and the because the protein will stick in the house hold and continue to get worse. The protein will accumulate and so will your allergies.

Humans cannot ingest this antibody and have it work. Scientists are not yet selling this product, because it may not work all the way, as you can read in the paragraph above this one. The scientists plan to learn more and research more about this solution. I really hope that the scientists can find a way to have it so that I am not allergic (and everyone else who is) to cats any more.

When will I be able to get a cat?

When will I be able to get an awesome car?

Can cats eat bananas?

The cat in this picture is cute!!

In class we are learning about biomes. Biomes are the habitats and places animals and humans live in. I am doing the Temperate Forest Biome. The reason I wanted the Temperate Forest is because red pandas live in it and I really love red pandas. We get to make our biomes in a cardboard shoebox and use all different materials like styrofoam balls and such. We also have to make a Wix site, which is fun and hard at the same time, because I am not very familiar with. I usually only use Google Docs, but this is good because it spreads my ability to work with sites I am not familiar with.

I will be learning a lot about biomes this year and especially about red pandas. Aren’t they sooo cute? Here are some cool facts I thought I could share with you: Did you know that a red panda can eat around 20,000 bamboo leaves in one day? The second name they have for themselves is Fire Fox because of their size and color. At night, they can keep themselves warm by wrapping their tails around themselves.

Red pandas live in places like China, Nepal, Myanmar (Burma), and in central China. For my biome, I will be studying the Temperate forests of China.

How long do red pandas stay with their families before they leave their homes?

Can red pandas see color?

What is Aidan doing in the background of the picture?

This week we put on a play for the fourth graders about a fungus named Freddie on trial. It sounds funny, right? Well it was a lot of fun! There were six parts, so it was perfect for our class because we have six kids in our class. I was a flower named Vera Violet, and I got to wear a sparkly sequined purple dress, a hair ribbon, and a pink scarf. I thought being this character was a lot of fun because I had a funny line that I got to say twice in the skit; it was “Aren’t I beautiful?” Clearly my character was very full of herself and always thought that she was the best. Lizzie was the judge, Lars was Widow Sycamore (his costume was great!), Gus was Freddie the Fungus, Alisha was Woody Woodpecker, and  Aidan was the introducer. We are all part of the wilderness. The reason Freddie the Fungus was on trial was because Widow Sycamore thought that he killed her husband, Jeremiah Sycamore. Freddie says that he is just doing his job, but everyone there thinks it is his fault. Freddie gets asked questions by the judge and so does everyone else. At the end the Judge decides that they should figure it out.

I personally thought that this was a great idea/activity for the sixth graders and the fourth graders. I wonder what it was like to watch us?

On Friday this week, we had a snow day! My family went sledding and then we went inside and watched a movie. It was a cozy day. I also got sick on that snow day and so I watched another movie.

Did Shane come up with the Freddie Fungus story?

Do you think the snow will melt all the way?

Why is the sky blue?