debate-lfrf-digest/v01.n001

debate-lfrf-digest V1 #1 owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

WELCOME TO THE "BACKYARD BIODIVERSITY" DEBATE! owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

SOME COMMENTS ON BIODIVERSITY, FROM DR. BILL LAURANCE, MANAUS, BRAZIL owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Let the debate begin owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Beers Street Middle School - "backyard" owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Introduction owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

forwarded to debate owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Getting Started owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Central East Middle School owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)

Signs of spring? owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)Other ONAIR-LFRF archives

debate-lfrf-digest V1 #1

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: debate-lfrf-digest V1 #1
Date:
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debate-lfrf-digest Monday, March 16 1998 Volume 01 : Number 001

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Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 10:16:08 -0500

WELCOME TO THE "BACKYARD BIODIVERSITY" DEBATE!

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: WELCOME TO THE "BACKYARD BIODIVERSITY" DEBATE!
Date:
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Welcome, students and lifelong learners of all ages, to the "Backyard
Biodiversity" debate!

As project director for PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE and the LIVE FROM specials,
I'm lucky enough to get to travel to some pretty neat places: camping out on
the ocean ice in Antarctica and listening to seals singing deep below--that
was great! Then, taking a photo at the South Pole, I worried I'd left my
gloves off for too long--a few seconds--and had foolishly given myself
frostbite! Up in the stratosphere, aboard a jet plane converted into a
flying observatory, I marveled at how astronomers managed to make beautiful
images out of tiny shreds of energy. And now, late last year, I got to
travel up the Amazon, to the heart of the largest rainforest on Earth, and
sleep out in the forest--woken from time to time by the eerie sounds of
howler monkeys. ( To find out a little more about that experience, check out
my Journal under the TEAMS section of the LIVE FROM THE RAINFOREST web site:
http://passporttoknowledge.com/rainforest )

But I have to say that one of the absolutely coolest things I've experienced
during these 4 years of electronic field trips has been seeing what happens
when students collaborate with each other via the Internet in projects like
THE GREAT PLANET DEBATE (part of LIVE FROM THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE) or
THE PLANET EXPLORER TOOLKIT (during our Mars series.) It's always been
incredibly exciting to see the messages coming in from schools across the
U.S. and--sometimes--from around the world, making suggestions about how to
design an experiment, interacting with each other and their teachers and
with participating scientists and mentors engaged in real world research.

That's what we hope will be happening once again over the next few months.
First we'll consider just what "biodiversity" means, and then we'll enlist
rainforest researchers to tell us all how they survey it. We hope more and
more of you will be working together with us and each other, as the days and
weeks go by... and that you'll see your work, and that of your peers,
featured online and on TV in the 3 LIVE FROM THE RAINFOREST programs.

Welcome aboard... and let's make the "Backyard Biodiversity Survey" fun as
well as informative.

Onward and Upward,

GHS
Geoff Haines-Stiles
Project Director, PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE & the LIVE FROM... specials
"electronic field trips to scientific frontiers"
Real Science, Real Scientists, Real Locations, Real Time
vox: 973.656.9403 * fax: 973.656.9813 * mobile: 908.305.7061
alt. e-mail: ptkghs@aol.com
http://passporttoknowledge.com
Antarctica... Stratosphere... Hubble... Mars... Rainforest... the Arctic,
and more

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Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 10:41:37 -0500

SOME COMMENTS ON BIODIVERSITY, FROM DR. BILL LAURANCE, MANAUS, BRAZIL

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: SOME COMMENTS ON BIODIVERSITY, FROM DR. BILL LAURANCE, MANAUS, BRAZIL
Date:
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Greetings, teachers and students!

As promised, to get the debate going, here are some thoughts from Bill
Laurance, one of the team leaders in the Smithsonian/INPA experiment on the
effects of forest fragmentation on biodiversity, which he e-mailed to us
specifically for this "debate-lfrf" group over the weekend. (Online you've
already met Dr. Laurance through his 2 Journals describing rainforest
research [and his well-founded fear of jaguars!] one of which we distributed
via Updates.)

We hope to have more input from more of the scientists on location in
Manaus, Brazil, in the days and weeks ahead. Let us, and them, hear some of
what YOU are thinking, and we'll work to get the inter-action and
co-llaboration (which, after all, literally means co-working) going!

Onward and Upward!

Geoff Haines-Stiles

***

MEASURING BIODIVERSITY

In its literal sense, "biodiversity" is the diversity of life, and that can
mean different things to different people. One of the commonest ways to
measure biodiversity is to simply count species. Anyone can do this. For
example, you could count the number of plant species growing in a city lot
and compare that to the number growing in a forest (to make a fair
comparison, you should use the same plot size in each area).

We might compare two different areas--such as our city lot and the
forest--but make two lists for each site: native species, and weeds or
exotic species. Often weeds, or invading species, in fact do very well when
their native environments are disturbed. And as many parts of the U.S. have
discovered, sometimes "more" (as in more deer, and more deer ticks), is not
necessarily a good thing! In this way, we find we're making value judgements
about species, as if some species were more important than others. Usually
we consider native species "good" and weeds or exotic species "bad."

There are yet other ways to measure biodiversity. Some people give special
importance to primitive species ("living fossils"), or to species that have
very small geographic ranges ("local endemics"), and thus are very prone to
extinction. Another way to evaluate species is by their ecological roles.
For example, "keystone species", such as jaguars and elephants, have a major
impact on the entire ecosystem, and thus are especially important to protect.

A final way to measure biodiversity is by studying the genes of species.
Geneticists have made enormous advances in the past few decades, and they
can work wonders. For example, it is possible to tell whether one
population of a species has been interbreeding with another population over
the past ten thousand years, just by taking a few blood samples and studying
the genes in the blood cells.

A final note about biodiversity: no matter now you measure it, it is
declining very, very rapidly today. Scientists believe that species are now
going extinct as fast or faster than when the dinosaurs disappeared--and
that was one of the most massive extinction episodes the earth has ever seen.

Dr Bill Laurance

***

GHS
Geoff Haines-Stiles
Project Director, PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE & the LIVE FROM... specials
"electronic field trips to scientific frontiers"
Real Science, Real Scientists, Real Locations, Real Time
vox: 973.656.9403 * fax: 973.656.9813 * mobile: 908.305.7061
alt. e-mail: ptkghs@aol.com
http://passporttoknowledge.com
Antarctica... Stratosphere... Hubble... Mars... Rainforest... the Arctic,
and more

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 07:34:03 -0500

Let the debate begin

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Let the debate begin
Date:
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Welcome to debate-LFRF. One of the first things we need to do is introduce
ourselves so that we know a little about each other. Although Eileen and
I will co-moderate, we would like the real speakers to be you, the
students. In that spirit, I would like to introduce one of my students,
Melissa, who will give you some idea about our "backyard".
"Hi, I'm Melissa. I'm 11 years old and in sixth grade at Blessed
Sacrament. We've been talking about our "backyard", we call it the
playground, It really is a parking lot. There is some green space
around the edges and around the school building. It looks like spring is
almost here. On Monday, the temperature was up to 73 degrees F. We went
outside and didn't need our jackets. However, on Tuesday the high
temperature was about 45 F. Today the high was only 36. We have all kinds
of plants starting to peep out. The daffodils are up but they haven't
bloomed yet. The National Park says the cherry trees will be blooming
early in a couple of weeks. They are concerned that the blossoms will be
damaged because the temperature is so low now.
If you want to put us on your map, we are at
longitude 77deg 4 min. 30 sec W
latitude 38deg 57 min 30 sec N
We would like to know where you are located. Tell us what's happening
where you live.

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:18:42 -0500

Beers Street Middle School - "backyard"

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Beers Street Middle School - "backyard"
Date:
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Hi,

I'm Amy. I am 12 years old and in the seventh grade at Beers Street Middle
School. In the back of our school is a beautiful open field with two
baseball fields, a pretty small playground with seesaws, swings, slides
etc. On the side of our school is a parkway filled with air pollution. The
flocks of birds are coming back and we just had a bad rain storm, so big,
big puddles are here. The temperature has dramatically decreased and we are
freezing down here. We haven't had any snow yet and everybody is getting
sick with the flu. We hope to have some normal weather soon!

We are located on the map at:
40 N degrees latitude
74 W degrees longitude

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Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 00:51:36 GMT

Introduction

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Introduction
Date:
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Hi,
My name is Gianfranco Martinis, I'm from Salta, Argentina. I am 15 years and
I like all kinds of project related with the Earth's nature and space.
I go to Belgrano High School, there we have a footbal camp, with glass and a
lot of trees around.
In the neightborad I live (called Tres Cerritos) there is a lot of exuberant
vegetation, Salta is a cituy in a valley, and I have hills every where
around my house.
Noe it finishing the summer, so the plants are starting to get dried, but
althougt everuthig is beutiful.
Usually the weather here is very beutiful, but last daysit was preety cold
and rainy.
Usually we have temperature of about 26 C.

Best wishes from Salta, Argentina.

Hoping hearing soon from all of you.

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-=
*-*-

_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Gianfranco Martinis
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ cpces04@salnet.com.ar
_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Belgrano High School
_/ _/ _/ _/ 4400 Salta - Argentina
_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 18:53:29 -0500

forwarded to debate

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: forwarded to debate
Date:
Back to top

Hi,
My name is Gianfranco Martinis, I'm from Salta, Argentina. I am 15 years and
I like all kinds of project related with the Earth's nature and space.
I go to Belgrano High School, there we have a footbal camp, with glass and a
lot of trees around.
In the neightborad I live (called Tres Cerritos) there is a lot of exuberant
vegetation, Salta is a cituy in a valley, and I have hills every where
around my house.
Noe it finishing the summer, so the plants are starting to get dried, but
althougt everuthig is beutiful.
Usually the weather here is very beutiful, but last daysit was preety cold
and rainy.
Usually we have temperature of about 26 C.

Best wishes from Salta, Argentina.

Hoping hearing soon from all of you.

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
*-*-*-*

_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Gianfranco Martinis
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ cpces04@salnet.com.ar
_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Belgrano High School
_/ _/ _/ _/ 4400 Salta - Argentina
_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
*-*-*-*

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:40:16 -0500

Getting Started

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Getting Started
Date:
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It was interesting to read Dr.Bill Laurance's comments on biodiversity and how
it can be used to compare living organisms in different areas. In Geoff
Haines-Stiles post of March 10, 1998, Bill said:

"In its literal sense, "biodiversity" is the diversity of life, and that can
mean different things to different people. One of the commonest ways to
measure biodiversity is to simply count species. Anyone can do this. For
example, you could count the number of plant species growing in a city lot
and compare that to the number growing in a forest (to make a fair
comparison, you should use the same plot size in each area). "

That made me think that maybe we need to do some comparisons before we
decide what we want to do for our Backyard Biodiversity Survey. Perhaps
that would help us decide upon the procedure we want to follow. I'd like
to hear some comments about doing the following:
*In your backyard or school yard, measure a one meter square.
[See Activity 2.2 One Square Meter on the Educators link of
Live from the Rainforest web site.]
*In that space, count the number of kinds of living organisms--any
plants [that includes mosses, algae, ferns] or animals [insects are
animals too!]
Report back to the list with those numbers and
*the weather conditions
*time of day the observations were made
*general description of the area
Decide in your class if this represents a diverse population of organisms
or not. Let's see if Bill's comment that biodiversity means different
things to different people holds true in our sampling.

Post your results to debate-lfrf by Friday, March 20, 1998.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 08:03:40 -0500

Central East Middle School

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Central East Middle School
Date:
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Hi,
My name is Jimmy Vu and I'm 12 years old. I go to Central East Middle
School. The Middle School is located on Wyoming and B street.,in Phila. PA.
In the back of the school there is a paved yard and we go out to play.We
even have an Annex building with a little bit of grass around it. There is a
vacant lot next store, that we can observe.
The temperature outside is really cold. The temperature today is 24
degrees. We haven't had snow yet and we are starting to freeze.
Jimmy Vu
Deborah Bambino dbambino@philsch.k12.pa.us

Central East Middle School
210 E. Courtland St.
Phila., PA 19120
215-456-5603
fax: 215-456-5614

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 06:54:00 -0500

Signs of spring?

From: owner-debate-lfrf-digest@rspac.ivv.nasa.gov (debate-lfrf-digest)
Subject: Signs of spring?
Date:
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We have had some real temperature changes during the last week....from a
high of 73 F last Monday to days where the temperature did not reach much
above 32 F. Since our school is located at 38degree 58 min. latitude, we
are wondering about the temperature ranges other areas have had. What
about the spring plants? Have the spring bulbs appeared? Did you have
this kind of change in temperatures?

We've heard from Amy in New Jersey and Jimmy in Philadelphia. Are there
other schools that would like to respond? What is happening in Argentina,
Gianfranco?
We would like to hear from points West, South and further North from us.
Please let us hear from you.
Melissa
Blessed Sacrament School

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End of debate-lfrf-digest V1 #1
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