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Survival at a Mountain Top

16/6/2020

 
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Have you ever heard of a pika? It was a new animal to me.  It lives in mountains at 10,000 feet and, as a skier, I have been to its habitat many times but didn't know where or how to look for it.  
Thanks to Pika Country: Climate Change at the Top of the World by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent & Marlo Garnsworthy, I am now enlightened.  The pika, also know as a rock rabbit,  is yet another version of a canary in a coal mine.  It requires cool summer temperatures to forage for food, (mostly grasses that dry to become hay) and stockpile enough to stay alive all winter.  

                     "Pikas are specially adapted to live in the chilly alpine environment among
                       the rocks and plants.
                      "In fact, pikas are usually only found in the mountains where the temperatures
                        are cool.  In temperatures warmer than 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius),                            pikas quickly overheat and die."

Pika Country, illustrated with photographs by skilled nature photographer Dan Hartman, is a picture book with intimate images of the pika barking, leaping, squeezing into a small rock crevasse, and carrying a mouthful of vegetation.  How did he ever get those shots?  Obviously, he had to be there, be ready and be patient.

The poor pika is prey to mountain mammals, like the weasel and fox and raptors, including the golden eagle and the prairie falcon.  Added to its woes, its habitat is shrinking due to climate change.  Where can you go when you're at the top of the hill and there's no more "up" to go?

The authors are exceptionally good at explaining the predicament by including many other alpine animals and trees that will be wiped out when mountain tops warm up.

They also include an excellent explanation of climate change and what kids (and caring adults) can do to slow down climate change.  Maybe it will also create the demise of the winter olympics? 

Climate Change and Hurricanes: Teachable Moments Are on Their Way

8/10/2018

 
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Climate change scientists predict in an increase in the strength of seasonal hurricanes.  Right now,  Michael is approaching Florida. Here comes a teachable moment. If you're required to "cover" earth science and particularly meteorology, allow me to point you to a resource I know quite well.  I wrote it.

It won a STEM award, only in its second year, which is honors the integration of science, technology, engineering and math into a single work. (I've been writing such books for a long time but it's still nice to be noticed.)  

Kids are fascinated with hurricanes because of their destructive power.  Right now, we have state-of-the-art ability to predict the approximate path of a hurricane within several days of warning. This gives residents, who may be in the hurricane's  path, time to board up windows, clear the patios of potentially flying objects, and evacuate if flooding from a storm surge is possible.  

We are nowhere close to steering a hurricane harmlessly into the ocean or diminishing its power.

Nevertheless, scientists and engineers have been thinking  and imagining how it could be done.  What do they need to know?

First, they have to understand the settled science about the the components of hurricanes: namely air, water, and energy.  How do these normally benign essentials for life get organized into such a violent storm?  Next, they have to understand what hurricanes do for the planet. Yes, they serve an important function, mainly to move the heat from the ocean to the stratosphere.  In. A. Hurry. Finally, they must understand the possibilities for weather modification and its potential for unforeseen catastrophe.  It's a fascinating subject for students to ponder.  It's a problem for which there are currently no right answers.  

I think it's good for students to live with questions.

You can find the new paperback here.  And if you want to follow Michael's progress and see what else is cooking in the Atlantic, go to the heart of the matter, the National Hurricane Center.  

Here are links to Nonfiction Minutes on hurricanes and climate change: 

Flying into the Eye of a Storm
Earth's Emergency Heat Valve: The Hurricane
​
Climate Change: The Facts and the Consequences
​
​
Hopping Ahead of Climate Change

Knocking Themselves Out

4/5/2018

 
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Among the most distinctive noises of the forest is the sound of a woodpecker banging away at a tree trunk. Its tattoo rat-a-tat can be as fast as a pneumatic drill. Their headache-producing activity of pecking, rapid fire, into a tree makes them the easiest bird to recognize. No other creature acts that way. And if you need motivation to get off your couch and into nature, Sneed B. Collard III’s Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes & Bagging Bugs is an irresistible invitation to grab a camera and guide book and run into a forest, any forest, and listen for yourself. Woodpeckers are such strange birds they make you shake your head. Want to know more? Collard makes you wonder and laugh at the same time:

“Why? Why do woodpeckers peck into trees so much? Is it because they hate trees? Are they full of avian anger that they’re trying to work out? Are they bored because their parents took away their videos games? The answer—or answers—turn out to be simpler than that……..”
That is the kind of writing that make this book a page-turner.

It is also testimony to Collard’s love of shooting woodpeckers, with a camera, not a gun. So many of them have brilliant coloration, especially of their heads, perhaps to make sure we notice how they use them. A woodpecker’s beak is a chisel and its head has a special tendon harness to keep it from giving itself a concussion. They peck to find food under bark and to carve out a cavity in a tree for a nest. And sometimes they peck to make noise—they drum! They drum to let other males know where they are and they drum to attract females. Who knew? Scientists record the drumming and play it back to lure woodpeckers for study. Surprise, a woodpecker will attack the loudspeakers near the human observer. Their drumming is intellectual property!

Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes & Bagging Bugs is a beautifully designed book with heavy, glossy stock pages that show off the spectacular photos of these birds feeding their young, catching flies on the fly, and slurping sap loaded with ants. Collard and his son, Braden obviously spent a lot of time working to get difficult-to-capture action photos and they share some of their hard-won out-takes with us as well.
​
The process of discovery, of being a naturalist, is shared with the reader. It is not quick or easy but it’s well-worth the investment. Publication is May 2018.

     Vicki Cobb

    *Award-winning author of more than 90 nonfiction books for children, mostly in science.
    *Former Contributor to the Huffington Post
    *Founder/President of iNK Think Tank, Inc.
    *Passionate advocate for the joy of learning for every child and teacher.


    Disclaimer: All opinions, typos, and grammatical errors are my own,  especially small word omissions which I often don't notice in my fervor.  

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