WHY SOAR?

SOAR has a serious side in its missions to help kids find ways of helping the ocean and watersheds throughout the world. I started on having seen hundreds of albatrosses killed by plastic debris at Pihemanu (Midway Atoll). I was inspired by the questions of young people in Ohio and by USFWS biologists working hard to protect endangered species and damaged habitats.



SOAR has a very fun and tough to define side.....thanks to FRED AND FRIENDS, Project SOAR helps with watershed and ocean workshops throughout the world, and generally makes people smile while they learn some tough stuff about how we treat our rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and the one ocean on planet earth..........

INVITING SOAR INTO YOUR SCHOOL, ORGANIZATION, AND COMMUNITY

SOAR introduces young people to ways they can make a difference in their local community and the wider world.



Take advantage by:



1) Invite a SOAR learning kit or bring Ron Hirschi to your school as a guest author or speaker for your organization. Ron has many years experience as an author and as a biologist. SOAR adds another dimension to his list of hands on projects he shares in writing, art, and ecology workshops.



Many schools invite Ron for his work as author of more than 50 nonfiction books, including many with ocean themes. Others bring him to school as a scientist or artist, but the best fit is always when schools use Ron to help them integrate curriculum.



Tom Bates, Principal at Tremont Elementary in Ohio recently said in an interview following Ron's visit, "What stood out to me was how Ron was able to gear his activities and discussion and information so it was meaningful to the students, whether they were in kindergarten or fifth grade."



Be in touch at whalemail@waypoint.com for visit information.



2) SOAR now has a new kit circling the globe along with a Laysan Albatross "Friend of Fred". This duo is packaged with a box full of ideas, activities, information about Papahanaumokuakea, ocean debris, and other materials aimed at sparking new projects related to the sea. Also included is a journal chronicling Fred's adventures, all of which began when kids at Columbus School for Girls (CSG) learned how they could take action to help the ocean.



Currently, this treasured package is in the hands of The Bush School in Seattle.


NOTE: You might also be lucky to receive one of the earlier packages with a FRED and Friend, already traveling. To date, Fred has visited Australia, Switzerland, Israel, England, The Dominican Republic, and many corners of the United States.

13 March 2010

WAITING TO SOAR WITH YOU --- NAME THE LAYSAN ALBATROSS CONTEST


                                                Laysan Albatross Illustration by Tammy Yee

Tammy and I are here to let you in on a little secret and to announce a Name the Albatross Contest.

We are writing a book about Wisdom, oldest known Laysan Albatross, and we are searching for a name for her mate, also a quite real and healthy bird.

To mix up the beauty of the real world with the fun of Tammy's fanciful imagery, we decided to create a Friends of Fred project just for all of you who care about the fate of our oceans. 

The real Wisdom is currently soaring hundreds of miles each week in search of food for her chick. So is her mate, as they tag team in an act of parenting seldom matched in the animal kingdom. Like other albatrosses, they fly the North Pacific in search of flying fish eggs and squid, then return to feed the little one............But wait!

Word is out that a male albatross has just begun searching for his dream mate he first saw for only a moment out in the north Pacific. She was wearing a red leg band, number Z333. On losing sight of this elegant bird, our nameless (until you decide what that name should be) male flew to tiny Sand Island in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Looking over the shoulder of a USFWS biologist, he discovered Z333 was born on Pihemanu (aka Sand Island within Midway Atoll). 

Her name is Wisdom. This we know. What would be the perfect name for her mate? Here is where we need your help. Wisdom and Tiger? Wisdom and ?

For all those of you enjoying visits from Fred and Friends, be looking for this dazzling Male albatross as he circles the planet in search of Wisdom. Like all Friends of Fred --- already, many Freds are traveling the planet along with Moli the Wandering Albatross, a tiny Redfooted Booby that Fred first met in a little cafe run by the Friends of Midway, and a soft yet strong Cougar who borrowed Fred's new surfboard to see the world after leaving the Rockies enroute to Oahu and Mokapu Elementary School..........

Meanwhile, Wisdom has already begun a journey in search of her own, Locking her wings in a soaring flight and feeling a strong sense of attachment to the island of her birth. Like a salmon swimming to its spawning stream, she suddenly turns and wings her way in the direction of Pihemanu. Wisdom is flying to the East while (insert your name choice here) is flying to the west...................

Will Wisdom ever meet up with him?
Will you be the one to host both Wisdom and her new mate as actual Friends of Fred Laysan Albatrosses make stops at schools, worldwide?
Will you win the incredible box of ocean prizes if your name for Wisdom's mate is chosen in secret balloting?

Stay tuned and Send your choice of name for Wisdom's mate to:

Friends of Fred
c/o Pals of the Pacific
PO Box 899
Hadlock, Washington 98339
or email
whalemail@waypoint.com
and place WISDOM in the subject line.


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X310 Plastic Ocean Activity


It's me, Fred, the Monkey.

If you look closely, you can see I wear X310's leg band around my neck. It's to remind me of her. She was a Laysan Albatross. She was born in March 2008 and lived on Pihemanu, one of the most remote atolls on earth, now part of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

You can wonder about Pihemanu and about X310. She didn't live very long, dying in June 2008. Her parents flew thousands and thousands of miles finding food for her. But x310, like lots of baby albatrosses died before she got to soar the seas. Some albatrosses fly three million miles during their life. Like X310's parents, their sea is a new challenge in food finding because of our actions on land.

Adult albatrosses fly more than a thousand miles just to get a single meal for their babies. But the ocean is full of plastic. And if you read my buddy, Ron's blog and website, you learn about plastic in the sea. It is everywhere and babies like X310 die because they eat so much plastic, they can not get it out of their stomachs.

Where's all this plastic come from?
Where does it go?

Here is a simple activity:

Get up from your chair and walk around the classroom or wherever you are sitting.

Write down each thing around you that is made of plastic.

Everybody compare lists and make a total of the plastic products.

Now, the hard part of this activity:

Can you find alternatives for the things you use, alternatives not made of plastic?
Maybe start with drinking water from a fountain or glass or reuseable container?
Maybe start a really good recycling project?
Maybe make some art from recycled plastic?
Learn more on links here on this site and others.
Talk about times with no plastic.
X310 would have appreciated if people, just a few years ago had decided to make a plastic-free world for you....
You and X310.

Learn how you can SOAR with FRED by arranging a visit with Fred and his ocean teaching kit by emailing his banana provider at whalemail@waypoint.com

FEEDING A BABY ALBATROSS OCEAN ACTIVITY

What you need:

Pint size plastic beverage container with wide mouth (about 1.5 inches) ---This approximates the size of a baby albatross stomach and esophagus.

Important to have the lid too.

Enough plastic items (bottle caps, toothbrush, legos, fishing line, small chunks of nylon rope, markers, pens, more bottle caps and even a few more bottle caps since they are pretty much the most common marine debris.

Talk with your audience of kids of any age about ocean debris and the way adult albatrosses fly out a few hundred or even a thousand miles to find flying fish eggs and squid for the little ones. They return to Pihe Manu or up on the Northeast shore of Kauai, find their young one among thousands of others and begin to feed by regurgitating "food".......

As you talk about this, have the kids place one or two pieces of the plastic into the bottle.

Replace cap with each addition of plastic. Shake gently to mimic bird moving around the nesting area a bit.

Remove cap. Shake gently to mimic the bird trying to dislodge "food" that can not be digested. In a perfect ocean, this would be squid beaks, fish bones, or other natural pieces of food.

Add more plastic, repeating above until no plastic falls out of the bottle when cap is removed (bill is opened) and the bird tries and tries, but can not toss up the mass of debris. See how much and how many different kinds of plastic can be added. Does the rope tangle with the legos and bottle caps. Do five bottle caps cause a blockage in the esophagus???

In nature, the upchucked mass is like an owl pellet and is known as a bolus. Natural foods slip freely through the esophagus and more feeding can continue. Most times, a baby albatross will toss up one bolus before leaving the nesting island. Unfortunately, thousands die because plastic blocks the stomach completely.

Your feeding the baby albatross activity can lead to a lot of discussion of plastics we use, discard, then find their way into the ocean and into the mouth of a baby albatross.

If you want to have a Baby Albatross Feeding Kit, complete with some plastic items that actually came from once living albatross at Pihe Manu, Papahanaumokuakea, be in touch.